Wand of Uru
by harrycastle
Summary: After slipping diagonally through time and space to a familiar time in an unfamiliar world, Harry finds himself fighting to save a future that's not quite what he remembers?
1. Chapter 1

1\. Rebirthing Now

Sharp little clicks of high heels sounded against the polished wood floors of the heads' common room, but Harry Potter elected not to look up from what he was working on. She stopped in front of him and he could practically picture her, bushy brown hair more frazzled than usual, the two spots of color high on her cheeks, arms crossed over her chest as she glared at him. Hermione Granger was a creature of habit, after all. "Harry James Potter!"

"That was my name last time I checked, yes." Harry continued to ignore her presence, muggle fountain pen scratching softly against the page of his enchanted journal as he wrote. He'd come to realize long ago that - despite her weapon of choice being mental abuse rather than physical - Hermione was shockingly like his cousin Dudley insofar as both thrived on bullying the people around them into submission. And the only real way to get rid of a bully, apart from using a curse that would probably land him in front of the Wizengamot, was to ignore them. Eventually they would get bored and move on. Hermione hadn't yet but he no longer indulged her; their discussions had reached a repetitive state months ago and while she never seemed to tire of trying to have the same argument yet one more time, he most certainly had. "Can I help you with something, Hermione?"

Grabbing the top of his journal, Hermione tipped it down so she could actually meet his eyes. "Yes. You're going to go get dressed and then we're going to put in an appearance at a party in the Gryffindor common room. And you're going to have fun at that party even if I have to hit you with a Cheering Charm. Now get moving."

Harry took advantage of their locked eyes, forcing his way into her mind with legilimency and rooting around until she realized what was happening and jerked her gaze away. Snorting, Harry batted her hand away from his journal and raised it again as he went back to transcribing something he'd pulled from Voldemort's mind in their final battle. "I don't think so, but you have fun with that. Assuming you stay more than five minutes before dragging Ron off somewhere private. By the way, please tell Ginny that I'm neither flattered nor interested. Her obsession with being 'the wife of He-Who-Defeated-Voldemort' crossed the line between disturbing and truly frightening a long, long time ago." He snorted. "Girls like her are almost enough to make me wish Colin hadn't died."

The blood drained from Hermione's face and her mouth worked soundlessly for a few moments before she scowled and whirled around, stomping back towards her room. Oh, what a horrible person he was, not wanting to waste time being deafened at a gathering of people he barely knew while letting the harpy shove him at a ginger barnacle who was under the deluded notion that they 'belonged together'. Harry snorted before returning to his work. Why were they even having a party, come to think of it? Quidditch season was over for the year. Maybe someone's birthday party, run amok? Or just a party for the sake of a party? The Gryffindors did seem to enjoy doing that these days and… well, the professors lacked the will to rein in the student body as a whole, writing off the mass misbehavior as a coping mechanism for dealing with the death and destruction they'd witnessed when Voldemort marched on Hogwarts in February of that year.

While he'd lost others over the years… Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, and a few members of the Order in small battles here and there… that one fight had done almost as much damage to his life and happiness as his second Halloween. Many people had died in the final battle, including his last surviving link to his parents: Remus Lupin. Tonks had perished alongside her new husband that day, and he'd lost several other friends as well: Neville Longbottom, his fiancé Hannah Abbott, Daphne Greengrass, Colin Creevey, and George Weasley among them. But as selfish as it made him feel, all of them combined paled in the face of one other loss he'd suffered that day. Luna Lovegood had been killed by Voldemort himself, mere hours after Harry had proposed to her and she'd accepted. A day dedicated to love, a day when they'd celebrated their love by taking the first steps in forging a life together… brought to an end by those two hated words.

Only a sick fuck like Voldemort would have attacked on Valentine's Day, Harry mused. Valentine's Day. Heh. He was lucky it was still known as such. He'd actually had to fight the Ministry to keep them from renaming it Harry Potter Day. Then they'd wanted to rename Halloween in his honor. Finally, when they targeted July 31st, he'd just given up. They could turn his birthday into a festival. It wasn't like he had anything better to do on that day anymore, what with all his loved ones being dead and all.

That was the other reason, apart from the loss of people close to him, behind his withdrawal from the world around him. His popularity pushed in on him from all sides now, everyone wanting something from the famous He-Who-Defeated-Voldemort. Offers of false friendship, business arrangements, political alliances, courtship… more than a few witches in his age group - and a few whose age ranged out into his parents' class at Hogwarts and beyond - had even made outright sexual advances, wanting nothing more than to be able to brag about being a notch on their savior's bedpost. It was all quite disturbing in his opinion. Well, it would have been disturbing enough to begin with, but having it happen so soon after the death of the woman he loved just made it all the worse.

Ron hadn't taken it too well, either. While their friendship had been on rocky ground since the redhead and Hermione had started dating, it had deteriorated and collapsed completely in the aftermath of Voldemort's demise. Ron had decided he was no longer content to be Harry Potter's Sidekick and, even though he was recognized for his role in the war, he'd wanted a share of Harry's fame too. Fame he had not one iota of claim to. And it'd eaten at him, until the day he finally gave in and walked away from Harry.

Even Hermione was different in this strange new world of his. She'd gone from a slightly bossy yet caring combination of sister and mother to a hideously obnoxious harpy, obsessed with the idea of returning him to 'normal'. What was normal for him? He'd been a beaten, starved, and overworked slave for people who'd hated him since he could walk. At eleven, he'd learned he was a wizard and part of a secret society - and a celebrity in that society at that - and then the last seven years had been spent fighting Voldemort in one form or another while being alternately canonized and vilified by a society of sheep. What normal did he know, that he could return to now that Voldemort was gone?

And hell, what did Hermione know about normal? She was a socially retarded bookworm whose only contact with people came through her boyfriend's family and the people who orbited around Harry… and who he was pretty sure had some degree of nymphomania, given the frequency and duration of Ron's visits to the Head Girl's room. Head Girl duties, pleasure reading, and even her precious homework had started to fall by the wayside as of late and Harry knew that if they weren't only three weeks from NEWTs and graduation, either the headmaster or their head of house - or both - would be stepping in to address the matter. Harry snorted; hopefully prophylactics were on the NEWTs, because that was about the only thing related to charms or potions Hermione had worked on outside the classroom since… pretty much February.

He knew that at least for him, though, NEWTs would be no problem. He'd been trained by the best of the best to defeat Voldemort, and his knowledge in every one of his classes was post-NEWT at a minimum. These days, his DADA, charms, and transfiguration knowledge was starting to reach out into the realm of 'only a few dozen people alive know some of the spells' territory. No, he dared say passing his NEWTs would be no problem at all. Which was good, because that gave him time for extracurricular things like being Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, which in turn took his mind off his life.

After a few refreshingly quiet minutes, Hermione came back out of the Head Girl's room and slammed the door behind her, making Harry look up from what he was doing. Her attire garnered a raised eyebrow from him; before the second semester of this year, he hadn't been aware Hermione knew skirts that short existed, much less owned them. He stared pointedly at her bare thigh for a moment before sliding his gaze up to meet her eyes and she flushed slightly. "Ron likes it when I dress like this. Now go get ready. We're leaving in three minutes. And if you really don't want to spend time with Ginny, fine. There's always Lavender, Parvati, Romilda, Jen, Chloe…"

"Don't want a disease, is a ditz, scares me more than Ginny, can't even manage to say hello to me, don't even know who she is… thanks but no thanks, Hermione. No. Non. Nyet. Nein. Næi. It was nice no-ing you. Have I made myself perfectly clear yet, or would you like me to start branching out into some of the really odd languages I learned while training? Mermish? Gobbledegook?" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and started tapping her foot, causing Harry to roll his eyes. "You're not going to win this, Hermione. I'm not going to the party, much less making a pass at some girl. Unlike you, I actually take care of my head duties. And I'm not talking about what Ron asks you to do in every dark corner of the school he can manage to drag you into."

Hermione blush became even more pronounced at the reminder of Harry's seemingly uncanny ability to walk in on her and Ron in compromising positions around the school. Not that he had any desire to, but when they took to using the entire school as their personal sexual playground… well, he couldn't very well avoid every lockable room in the school out of fear he'd walk in on them. He'd used the Marauder's Map near the beginning of the year to aid in his patrolling but that'd taken all the fun out of it after a while. Now, walking in on his former best friends was the price he had to pay for the rest of each evening's entertainment.

It was generally worth it. Well, except for that time with Ron, a drunk Hermione, and an equally inebriated Pansy Parkinson. It was going to take him years of therapy or quite possibly some fun spell time with Gilderoy Lockhart for him to ever get over walking in on that one.

"Harry." Oh Merlin, the harpy was whining at him again. Did she ever shut up? "I'm worried about you. You've been so different since you defeated Voldemort. You don't talk to anyone, you don't do anything fun…" Hermione sat on the arm of his chair, putting her hand over his. "This isn't what she would have wanted for you, Harry."

White-hot fury burned through Harry's veins, so violent that he momentarily feared that Voldemort was back and emotions were leaking through his scar again. Then he realized that his occlumency barriers were still at full strength and it was his own rage at Hermione. "Luna has been dead for three months, Hermione. Three months. I loved her. We had just gotten engaged that very day, and Voldemort killed her in front of me for his own sick amusement. And then I destroyed him in revenge. Tore him from the very fabric of reality. Unlike her, he didn't die. I made him cease to exist. And when I was done with that… Luna was still gone. So no, Hermione, don't try and tell me what Luna would have wanted. As if she wasn't someone you hated spending time with. As if you didn't just tolerate her because I made you. As if you somehow have some insight into what actually went on inside her head. Because even if you weren't completely wrong? What she would have wanted for me doesn't matter. She's dead. And despite all the power I have at my fingertips… everything I know… I can't change that. I can't bring her back."

"Harry…"

Harry shook his head, looking down at his journal for a moment before realizing he wouldn't be getting any more work done tonight and closing it. It wasn't just any journal; the pages were filled with potions recipes, spell variations he'd personally created, and other things he felt that the outside world didn't need to know about magic. Each page had a snake printed across the top in deep green ink, enabling him to switch to parselscript when he made entries. Anyone other than him would just see squiggles on a page, assuming they even got the journal open without being killed by his rather… fierce… protections. "Just… stop trying, Hermione. I'm going to go start rounds. Try to keep to either Ron's room or the Head Girl's room tonight. I'm getting tired of having to explain certain entries on the point deduction log to Professor McGonagall." Without waiting for a response, he shrunk his journal and stuffed it into a pocket before making his way out the portrait hole and into the hall.

After his rounds were done, taking longer than they would have if Hermione was still pulling her weight, Harry made his way out on the grounds, crossing the grass to sit atop a hill that looked down on Hogsmeade. He was allowed to leave the castle whenever he wanted to because… well, nobody could stop him. Not many would try, either, not after he'd killed the entire Inner Circle before tearing Voldemort from the fabric of reality and sending him into the great beyond with a spell that even Albus Dumbledore had publicly admitted he did not know. Snape and both male Malfoys had died before the final battle, though. Harry smirked. He'd seen to that personally.

Suddenly remembering what day of the week it was, Harry drew his secondary wand and rolled it between his fingers. The same length as his original holly and phoenix feather wand, this one had been gifted unto him by Dumbledore himself, who had in turn received it from his mentor, who had in turn received it from his mentor, and so on. None had been able to make the wand of oak and dwarf heart tissue so much as shoot a spark, the strange metal that wrapped the shaft in almost organic tendrils growing uncomfortably hot to the touch whenever they tried. But not only could Harry use the wand… he had unlocked its other secrets.

Focusing, Harry watched as the wand grew, getting almost twice as long and thickening to form a proper handle. At the same time, the metal flowed up to the tip and formed into the fat head of a war hammer. Harry hopped to his feet, thrusting the hammer up into the sky, and then his body disappeared from the grounds as a bright blue bolt of lightning surged upward from the ground into the clear night sky.

A fraction of a second later, seven hundred miles away in the town of Perranarworthal, a single bolt of lightning descended from an equally cloudless sky. It hit a spot just beyond the back doors of a large, empty house and left a solemn teenage boy in its wake. It was time, just as Harry had done every week since her death, for him to visit the graveyard at the recently reclaimed Potter Estate. To visit his fiancé's grave.

With her mother seven years departed and her father in the Janus Thickey Ward a few beds down from Frank and Alice Longbottom, there had been nobody left to protest when Harry had opted to have his beloved's remains buried near his parents and other close family friends. And so now Luna Abnoba Lovegood joined James Potter, Lily Potter née Evans, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Lupin née Tonks, Sirius Black, Charlus Potter, Dorea Potter née Black, and Charlus's parents in the Potter Family Cemetery. An empty spot rested between Luna's grave and his mother's, waiting for the day Harry passed on so that he could join the two most important women in his life in eternal rest.

Standing over Luna's grave, Harry brought his war hammer down and waved it over Luna's grave, letting loose a blast of blue lightning tinged with flecks of bronze. Rather than being a herald of destruction, though, the lightning crawled over the ground and left dozens of perfect Ravenclaw blue roses with bronze tipped petals. Harry nodded in satisfaction, returning his secret weapon to its wand form and tucking it away before circling around to kneel behind the grave, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the top of the cool granite as he settled in for his weekly chat.

"I hope Dumbledore was right and death is the next great adventure, because I'd hate to think you're as bored as I've been lately. Although everything I've ever read says death is supposed to be some sort of paradise, so you're probably off chasing snorkacks in the sky or somesuch. Which reminds me, I managed to convince the Wizengamot to release _The Quibbler_ into my possession until your father gets out of St. Mungo's. So next month, we'll be back on the newsstands. And I'll be going to Sweden to try and find their breed of crumple-horned snorkacks, just like we were planning." Granted it was planned as their honeymoon, but either way he was fulfilling the promise he'd made to her, so… semantics. Harry tapped his fingers along the top of the gravestone slowly, thinking about what else he ought to share. "Oh, the harpy came after me again tonight. Wanted me to go to some party. At first to try and set me up with Ginny - again - and then she tried to throw half of the Gryffindor girls at me when I turned that down. Which, again, means you were right. That girl's not all there in the head. Hermione or Ginny, that is."

What else? Oh! "Su and I have actually stepped it up to lessons five days a week. Well, we meet every day: I help her with wand work five days a week and she tutors me five days a week too, with both on three days. Her grades are climbing to the point that Hermione might have some serious competition for the end of year marks and overall NEWT scores among this year's girls. And… well, I'm finally getting to the point where I can have a basic conversation without accidentally mentioning a squirrel."

Harry grinned ruefully at that and rubbed his left hand over the back of the right, remembering the multitude of light swats he'd received during their lessons. To be honest, he hadn't really expected to get much out of his half of the trade with the diminutive Chinese girl - tutoring in DADA and charms in exchange for lessons in Mandarin - but he had come to enjoy them anyways. When she wasn't smacking him on the hand with a conjured switch for incorrect word choice or mangled pronunciation, that was. "She says that by the end of the school year, I might be to the point where she can begin working with me on some of her people's magic. Assuming we end up anywhere near each other after we graduate but… well, our great-grandchildren wouldn't have had to work. I think it's safe to say that I can afford to make myself available if I really want to. Which I do. Working with her is fun. She's…. fun. Thanks again for bringing her to join the DA. I don't know what I'd do without her now that you're gone and Ron and Hermione are… Ron and Hermione."

Sighing, Harry let his head drop so he could rest his forehead atop Luna's gravestone. "I guess… I guess I just don't see the point of it all. I did what I was supposed to do. I won the war. And what do I have to show for it? One friend. I have one friend left. And some sorta-friends from the DA, and housemates who act like they're my friends but I can barely even remember their names most days. This is what I gave you up to save? You, and Sirius and Remus, and my parents, and Neville, Hannah, Daphne, and the others? Talk about a kick in the jewels. I saved the world, but by the time I finally managed it, there was nothing left in it worth saving."

Silence fell as he leaned his head back, staring up into the clear night sky as he tried to figure out how to verbalize the thoughts running through his head. He noticed a few shooting stars burning past overhead and, as stupid as he knew it was, decided to partake in the old superstition and make a wish. Looking around, he waited for a few seconds before letting out a snort. Not that he'd expected much but ever since he'd discovered the wizarding world, all sorts of things he'd thought to be nothing more than myths had turned out to be real. Why not one more thing?

Feeling immensely stupid, Harry drew his holly wand before casting a Warming Charm and a Cushioning Charm on the ground behind Luna's headstone. Technically he was violating a host of rules; students weren't allowed to be out this late, nor were they allowed off the grounds during the school year apart from trips to Hogsmeade. Who was going to say anything to him, though? He was Harry Potter. Lowering himself to rest on the grass, Harry closed his eyes and let himself relax. Soon he found the magically created warmth and the noise of nature lulling him to sleep and he gave a mental shrug. Staying out overnight: one more infraction to add to the list of things he wouldn't be punished for. As he drifted off, Harry thought he felt an odd falling sensation… but that was just ridiculous, because he was already lying on the ground.

Right?

When Harry woke up the next morning, he was exhausted. And not 'had a tough time sleeping' exhausted or 'Voldemort was sending me dreams of torturing muggles' exhausted. It was a bone deep weariness that had him utterly confused; he hadn't done anything worthy of that kind of achiness at all lately, much less in the last day or so. Then he looked around and noticed something was different.

Belay that… everything was different.

The grave he'd been lying on was gone, as were the roses he'd laid around it for Luna. Looking around wildly, Harry realized that not only was her grave gone, so was Remus's. And both his parents'. "If this is some kind of sick joke, I'm going to kill the person responsible in a way so painful, Voldemort would have watched on in awe!" That made him aware of another change: his voice sounded far, far younger and higher-pitched than it should at his age. Slowly, he looked down at his body and realized his voice wasn't the only thing younger than it should have been. "What the bloody hell?"

After taking a few minutes to calm down and examine his body more closely, Harry had come to the conclusion that… he had no idea what the hell was going on. For some bizarre reason, he was a preteen again. Bigger than he'd been upon arriving at Hogwarts, but that didn't take much given how the Dursleys had mistreated him and so he wasn't going to use that to gauge anything. He was still wearing his school uniform and black robe, although they were both understandably a bit too big for him in his current state. A flick of his wrist had… nothing jumping to his hand. His wands were gone. Scowling, Harry waved his hand and focused hard, binding his magic to his will and wandlessly transfiguring his oversized uniform into a pair of appropriately sized trousers and a t-shirt, along with trainers that weren't a few sizes too big. While his wand was gone, his magic was still at its seventeen-year-old levels despite his regressed age as best Harry could tell. So while he would be inconvenienced between now and his eleventh birthday, he wasn't helpless. Idly, he wondered if that meant he had reached full magical growth - or close to it - early or if he'd be even stronger at seventeen the second time around.

Then again, that assumed this wasn't some bizarre dream or magically induced out of body experience and that he'd reach his eleventh birthday here, much less his seventeenth. Given he had no clue where he was, why he was there, or how he'd ended up younger than he ought to be in the first place… Harry decided that those questions should probably be given priority over musings about his potentially non-existent future. And since it was probably the easiest to figure out, Harry opted to start with the question of where he was.

As best he could tell, he was still on the grounds of the Potter Estate. In the graveyard, even. It was just far smaller than it was supposed to be, with only the headstones of his paternal grandparents and great-grandparents. Passing through the barrier of trees that separated the cemetery from the world at large, Harry came to an abrupt halt as he stared at Potter Mansion. It was… alive. There were hangings in the windows, smoke curling from the chimney, a few patio chairs sitting around a table just beyond the back door, and… a redheaded missile heading for him at top speed?

Ginny?

It wasn't until she slammed into him, almost knocking him over onto his back, that he got a good look at her and that just left Harry even more confused. Whoever she was, her eyes were hazel instead of chocolate brown like Ginny's, although their almond shape reminded Harry of his own. Her hair was also too dark a red to be Ginny's, reminding Harry almost of pictures he'd seen of his mother. Who… also had almond-shaped green eyes like him. But it was what came out of her mouth that really floored him. "Harry! You giant prat, where have you been all morning? You're going to be in so much trouble when we get home. I bet Mum's going to ground you from now until September. If she even lets you go to Hogwarts."

Harry's jaw dropped in shock before anger set in. What the hell was she trying to pull? His 'mum' had been dead for sixteen years now, and… wait a second. Taking a deep breath, Harry pushed aside his feelings and did his best to channel the 'inner Ravenclaw' Luna had always claimed he possessed. While his diminished size and age could be attributed to a potion or human transfiguration, some other things about the situation were harder to explain. The shrunken graveyard, for one, or the aura of habitation that surrounded Potter Mansion. And if this was some dreamscape constructed by his mind… why would he have created a younger sibling for himself, and not just a world where his parents were still alive?

Suddenly, Harry's thoughts from the night before came back to him. His wish upon a shooting star that the world would make sense again, and perhaps that he might even find someone to love again someday. What if, through some sort of brute force application of magic and willpower, he'd forced himself diagonally across time and space, stuffing his essence into the body of a younger, sibling possessing Harry Potter? The shade of Voldemort in Quirrell, the diary, the inevitable second war… they were all things he was familiar with and capable of handling, unlike the constant celebrations after his victory and the praise heaped upon him for it. It seemed too fantastical to believe, but what better explanation did he have?

Continuing to natter away, the redhead hopped off Harry and yanked him to his feet before punching him hard on the arm. "Mum's been really worried and she's had everyone out looking for you. Rose and I have been taking turns sitting in the house with the spare mirror in case you came home and wandering around the neighborhood, and Uncle Remus, Uncle Sirius, and Dad have been apparating up and down half of Cornwall all morning. Dad took off from work and you know what that means…" Harry's brain froze, and he tuned out the rest of her almost Hermione-esque rant.

Uncle Sirius?

Uncle Remus?

Sirius and Remus were alive here? Sirius was free? What? How?

"Right. Well, why don't we get home so we can tell everyone you found me and they can stop looking?" While Harry still wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation, her words did lend a bit of credence to his idea of being in an alternate universe. If this was a dream, why on Earth had his subconscious created not one but two sisters for himself - or at least he assumed Rose was a sister given the flower name and not a friend of this girl - who he had to share the attention of his parents, Sirius, and Remus with?

"Harry!" He looked over just in time for another body to slam into him, this one bigger and pulling him in for a hug instead of bowling him over like his sister had. Pushing up on his toes, he peered over her shoulder and watched his supposed sister mouth the word 'grounded' before an identical girl came strolling out of the back of the house, elbowing her twin in the ribs. The aforementioned Rose, Harry was guessing. Which meant the woman hugging him could only be… "Harry?"

Nodding, Harry pulled back and studied the woman in front of him intently. It was indeed his long dead mother, albeit a version older than any he'd seen in pictures. Which made sense, if this was some bizarre universe where they'd survived that fateful Halloween. If he was ten or so - he was guessing it was the summer before his first year, based on his sister's comment - then this woman was almost a decade older than his had been at the time of her death. "Hey, err, Mum. It's me. I'm okay. Really."

There was a crack behind him and the shocks kept coming as Harry whirled around to face the newcomer. An older version of his father was standing there, an irritated expression on his face. Raising his wand to his temple, he sent two separate patronus messengers racing off into the woods before returning his attention to Harry… or rather Lily. "I'm going to head in. Maybe they'll let me log a half shift or a full shift from noon till eight. I'd appreciate you remembering to keep a plate of dinner for me this time." Giving Harry one last look, James turned away and disappeared into thin air with a crack of apparition.

Harry just stared blankly at the empty space for a long minute before shaking his head. That was his father in this universe? Wow. What… what a dick. Not quite up there with Lucius Malfoy or anything, but hardly the Father of the Year material he'd - perhaps irrationally - expected of him. It sealed the alternate universe hypothesis for him, though. After all, if this was a dream, why wasn't his father a nicer, more caring person? A few seconds later there was another crack off to their left and Harry tensed again out of instinct, but again resisted the urge to do something stupid. A good thing, he realized a second later, because wandlessly cursing his godfather would have caused him no end of problems. "Hey! James told me you found the squirt!" A very much alive, young, and healthy Sirius reached forward to ruffle his hair. "Lemme guess, he went in to work as soon as he found out?" Sighing, Lily nodded and Sirius rolled his eyes. "Wanker. He may be the brother I… well, the brother Regulus should have been… but he's still a wanker sometimes. Alright, want Anastasiya and Cassie to come over for lunch? Keep you, Remus, and the kids company?"

Waving towards the house, Lily dismissed the twins… and him, Harry found out as she pinned him with a long stare until he began following them. As he departed, his mother's voice drifted to him. "Might as well. Anastasiya and Remus are the only adult conversation I get apart from when You-Know-Who visits."

"Ouch. I'll have you know I can be perfectly adult when I feel like it."

"Which is when?"

"Well, never. And does You-Know-Who actually count as adult conversation? You two are never talking for long…"

"Sirius!"

Slipping into the house, Harry tried to process what he'd just heard. His mother… was having an affair? That's what it sounded like, at any rate. Not with Sirius or Remus, evidently, but with someone the former knew. And his father's best friend knew but wasn't evidently sharing that information with his father. Wait. Stop. These weren't the same people he'd known - or wished he'd known - back in his home universe. Hell, for all he knew, maybe it wasn't adultery. Maybe polyandry was the norm here and he'd yet to meet his mother's other husband, who Sirius didn't like or who was an Unspeakable, hence the they were just very amorous and so they didn't spend much of their free time talking. Not bloody likely, but it was a reminder that he needed to keep his preconceptions stifled and his mind open.

Wandering the ground floor of the house, Harry quickly discovered that at least it was familiar. The back door led into a 'breakfast' nook, which was in turn connected to both the kitchen and the living room. Starting in the kitchen and heading clockwise, he circled through the kitchen, formal dining room, and sitting room before passing by a staircase - for now; he'd explore upstairs in a minute - and slipping down a hall to find his father's study in the same place as it had been in his world. One wall was dedicated to a massive family tree and Harry began scanning it for names he recognized. Finally, he found his parents and traced a finger down to find three names: Harry Potter, Jasmine Potter, Rose Potter. So his tackler's name was Jasmine. He snorted. Evidently Lily had imposed her family's naming traditions on the next generation of Potter women. Thank God he was her eldest son and not her eldest daughter. He'd discovered a journal of hers in his original timeline… the woman had been considering naming him Dahlia if he'd been a girl.

Harry shuddered. Oh yes, that would have been an easy name to inspire fear with. Dahlia Potter, Slayer of Death Eaters, Destroyer of Voldemort. Somehow, it lacked the same oomph as Harry Potter.

Pausing, Harry eyed the dates under the three names. His birthday was still on July 31st, with Jasmine on June 6th of the following year and Rose on June 7th. He double-checked the dates, his math, and then blinked. In just shy of eleven months, his mother had given birth to him and then gotten pregnant with and delivered his twin sisters. They were Irish triplets. Sweet Merlin, didn't these people know what a Contraceptive Charm was for?

Quiet laughter and conversation drifted Harry's way and he frowned before identifying the voices: Remus Lupin and his mother. They didn't seem to be heading his way but since he wanted to explore a bit more before being tied down by the inevitable conversation to demand answers, he slipped out of his father's study and made his way back to the stairs, ascending them to the first floor.

Directly across from the staircase was what turned out to be the master suite, Harry discovered after a quick inspection. Curious as he was, he decided to keep moving in case Lily decided to come upstairs and change. Proceeding down the hall, he found a bathroom on the left that reeked strongly of fruit and a closed door that was protected by several locking charms he opted not to disturb. It was marked by the letters 'NB' in a paint that constantly shifted colors, which simultaneously hinted at the identity of the occupant and confused Harry because… why would she be living at Potter Manor? And using those initials? Moving further down the hall, he found a pair of bedrooms that had 'Rose' and 'Jasmine' painted on the respective doors in gold cursive writing. Harry frowned at the lack of a bedroom for him before remembering the second floor of the manor and the two large bedrooms up there; his parents must have put him upstairs, presumably to keep him and the girls from feuding over a shared bathroom. The remaining room was probably a guest room or something. Resolving to continue his searching later, he returned to the ground floor and made his way into the kitchen.

The manor was so much nicer with people inside it, Harry decided. Lived in like the Burrow, but more orderly and without the fear that sneezing too hard would leave a family homeless. On the other hand, it shared the look of wealth that Malfoy Manor had, albeit in a slightly more understated and warmer way. It was in a word, perfect. Seating himself next to Remus at the kitchen island, watching his mother bustle around making a simple lunch of soup and sandwiches, only to be pulled from his thoughts by the sound of his mother's voice. "Harry, what's wrong? Usually you'd be out back flying your broom or reading your father's prank journal so you can try and play tricks on your sisters and me. You're awfully quiet, too. Are you sure you're feeling okay? Not that I mind that you're actually behaving yourself for once, of course, but… well, I guess I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Harry nodded, still uncertain enough in this strange new world to be leery of answering. The last thing he needed was to set off alarms in his mother's head by giving an answer that would be completely out of character for… God, this world's him sounded like he was on the road to being just as big of a prick as his father. Or an immature little boy. Which he supposedly was. Sigh. This was going to be harder to pull off than he'd thought. Hopefully he'd be able to redefine their perceptions of him in short order, because that wasn't a role he wanted to play for long. At the moment, though, he needed something to satisfy her curiosity with. Maybe he could try… "Well, I missed breakfast. I figure if I hang out with you, I can get first dibs on lunch and grab all the best bits for myself." He grinned and rubbed his hands together greedily, which made his mother laugh before turning away to face the counter again.

"Fine, but you're in charge of taking Jasmine and Rose to the market in Falmouth tomorrow to pick up our weekly order." The way she phrased it made it seem like it was supposed to be a punishment but why it would be, Harry had no idea. Did he and his siblings not get along? Were they little hellions too? Harry watched Lily bring the sandwich platter out to the breakfast nook before returning and poking his stomach. "It'll get you out of the house in a useful way for once and besides, you know you need the exercise."

He what? Harry glanced down at his midsection and did a double take at the size of his stomach. Holy shit. He really did need the exercise. He was worse than Neville in their first year. How could someone as young and presumably active as his younger self be so chubby? "Well, I guess I can put off my busy day of flying, flying, and flying to help you out."

"It's either that or you can follow me around doing chores for the next few days so I know where you are at all times?"

"Falmouth it is, Mum." 


	2. Chapter 2

2\. The Boys of Summer

A few minutes later, his sisters swept past the island on their way from the living room to the supposed breakfast nook that evidently served other meals as well. Lily handed Harry a separate plate bearing a sandwich larger than any of the ones that had gone by on the platter before shooing him in the same direction, the fireplace off to his left flaring as he slid off the island stool. The green flames of an incoming floo connection danced merrily for a moment and then Sirius emerged, followed by a statuesque woman with wheat blonde hair and a brunette girl who looked to be his sisters' age. As the blonde approached the table, a tickle against Harry's mind made him twitch before realizing that he recognized the sensation: it was similar to how he felt around Fleur, albeit several magnitudes stronger. Reinforcing his occlumency shields to prevent himself from doing something stupid, Harry sat back and waited to see how the room settled.

Remus sat in the middle of one side of the table, the twins claiming spots on either side of him. Lily and Sirius took opposite ends of the table, with Sirius's wife seating herself at his left and leaving the spot to his right open. With the blonde the only occupant of her side of the table, it left three seats for Harry to pick from along with the one between Rose and Sirius. He opted to take the seat directly at his mother's right, blinking as Sirius's daughter slid into the seat next to him. The twins abruptly went from snickering at something Remus had whispered to them to glaring and Harry looked from them to the blushing, very shy looking brunette beside him before he caught on. Sirius's daughter had a crush on him. Jasmine and Rose were not amused. Great. He forced himself to smile even though he wanted to bang his head against the table. Out of all the things that he'd thought having a family would mean, overprotective siblings was not one of them. Suddenly he found himself able to empathize with how Ginny must have felt… and then his mind leapt from there to less pleasant thoughts about his stalker, forcing him to clench his fist as he further reinforced his occlumency shields, banishing his feelings and regaining control through brute force. He had to pay attention. The only reason he even had names for these people was because he had good ears. Apart from that, he knew nothing about them and so unless he listened, thought fast, and spoke carefully, they represented yet more threats to his chances of remaining hidden.

His godfather had a wife and daughter. It was an incredibly bizarre thought to try and wrap his mind around, since all of his encounters with Sirius had come after the man had suffered in Azkaban for twelve years and was on the run as a fugitive from the law. Here, obviously, that had never happened and he'd forged a nice life for himself as best Harry could tell. As he nibbled on his sandwich, Harry remained quiet and let the various conversations swirl around him, absorbing as much information as he could. The last thing he needed was to be exposed because he didn't know something he should have, or knew something the adults didn't think he should.

While Harry was by no means an expert when it came to deciphering foreign accents, he recognized Anastasiya's as vaguely similar to Viktor Krum's but distinctly different at the same time. Over the course of lunch's conversation, he managed to confirm his suspicions: Anastasiya was from Ustynivka, Ukraine, where Sirius had stumbled across a small colony of veela. After the war had ended, he'd decided to dip into the Black vaults and go on a world tour to 'find himself'. Harry didn't know whether or not Sirius had succeeded on that front, but he had found a wicked hot wife at the very least. It made him wonder… Bill's coworkers had been in awe of him snagging a quarter-veela. What would they have said to Sirius?

Cassiopeia - Cassie in casual conversation, but the signature House of Black astronomy name had come out when Anastasiya had chided her daughter for missing her bowl with half a ladleful of soup - had medium brown hair that looked to be a shade perfectly halfway between Anastasiya and Sirius's hair colors, along with blue-grey eyes that likewise seemed to straddle the line between her two parents. He didn't know much about veela development, but assumed the fact she was only ten was why he felt no allure coming off her despite the hesitant, blushing glances she kept sending him. Harry bit back a groan at that. It was like Ginny Weasley all over again. Hopefully Cassie was smarter and saner, or things had the potential to get awkward quickly when she entered puberty. Harry found himself idly wondering what she'd done to irritate the twins so. Something to look into later, he supposed.

Remus, sadly, lacked both a significant other and children at present. Evidently this world wasn't any kinder to its werewolves than Harry's original had been. Thinking back, Harry remembered Remus mentioning an interest in one or two of their fellow Order members during firewhiskey-fueled moments of sharing. Maybe he could manipulate things so Remus met them again in this world, except without the shadow of war and painful death hanging over them to squash the romantic mood.

The werewolf was still a part of the extended Potter-Black-Lupin family, though, entertaining the twins with jokes as the group passed the soup pot and sandwich platters around. Lily would occasionally scold him for a joke that skirted the line of good taste, making Harry raise an eyebrow. His world's Remus had never been that relaxed in the four years he'd known the man. Fascinating. When she wasn't busy scolding Remus, Lily would engage Anastasiya in discussions about what Harry was pretty sure were the latest advancements in the field of enchanting; while he could cast spells with the best of them and even knew how most of his repertoire worked these days, that was one field he'd never gotten around to touching and so it was all Gobbledegook to him.

Sitting beside the quiet Cassie, Harry slowly worked through his lunch, enjoy the sounds of his happy family and the simple but tasty food. His good mood came to an abrupt end when he found a pair of green eyes boring into his own. They were quite familiar; he saw them in the mirror every day. After all, he'd been told ever since he'd first entered the wizarding world that he had his mother's eyes. "Harry? What possessed you to wander off this morning before the rest of us got up? And where'd you go? I had to call in Sirius and Remus, your father was late to work…"

"I… uhh…" Harry racked his brain, trying desperately to come up with an answer to give her. Nothing. Absolutely nothing came to mind to explain such odd behavior in a ten-year-old. Bugger. Maybe his mother had a sense of humor? She had to have one to be married to James Potter… right? "You don't need to know where he was this morning."

"I don't need to know where you were this morning."

"This isn't the son you're looking for."

"You aren't the son I'm looking for."

"He can go back to his lunch."

"You can go back to your lunch."

"Eat up."

"Eat up… eat up." The twins were giggling away, even as Anastasiya tried to affect a politely confused smile rather than admit she had no idea what was going on. Cassie, Sirius, and Remus seemed likewise baffled. His mother's lips quirked upward at his evasion attempt, but she didn't join the twins in laughing at his joke. "But fine. If you don't want to tell me, you can tell your father when he gets home tonight. And I'll let him set your punishment."

The way his sisters abruptly stopped laughing told Harry that doing as much would be a Very Bad Thing for him and his future in this house. "Um… can we discuss it after, then? You know, so I don't have to embarrass myself in front of everyone?"

Lily eyed him before nodding slowly. "Fine. But you'd better have a darn good excuse, young man." Picking her sandwich back up, she paused just before biting into it and let out a small snort of laughter. "I never should have taken you to see the trilogy when they were rereleased. Although the Jabba imitation you did the first time you met your cousin Dudley… that was hilarious." Thank God he'd actually seen the movies here. Harry hadn't even thought about that before trying his little joke out. That would have been a hell of an awkward explanation, to be sure.

When lunch ended, Harry made his way back to the first floor landing before ascending the stairs to the second floor in search of his room. When he finally found it, he could only stare in awe. It was huge, especially compared to his room at the Dursleys' house, and not only was it bigger than the room he'd stayed in when he visited the Burrow but it was all his! Hanging on one wall was a Nimbus 2000 and there were Falmouth Falcons quidditch posters and memorabilia everywhere. Strangely enough, there literally wasn't a book in sight, not even something fictional for pleasure reading. Clearly, he was not an intellectual in this world or at least he hadn't been in the past. With everything he knew now, it would be hard to avoid being labeled as a bookworm unless he severely downplayed what he knew and could do… and that wasn't something he was entirely keen on doing.

He could ponder his future at a later date, though. What did he want to do with his afternoon? Harry still knew almost nothing about this self and the world he lived in… and he really didn't want to get into the habit of seriously mentally invading his family and friends. So he decided to adopt Hermione's outlook on life: when in doubt, go to the library. Unlike the Potter Manor he was familiar with, the second floor connector to what should have been the library instead led to a room with a large television and other expensive-looking electronics. Adding it to his list of questions to answer at a later point, Harry backtracked to the first floor landing and gained access to the slightly smaller, two-storied library via the twin of the hallway that had dumped him into the strange muggle room upstairs. He quickly found a book on modern history with the help of a wandless Summoning Charm and settling down in an armchair to do some light reading.

What he found shocked him. This Harry's parents had escaped Voldemort three times on the battlefield, but the house had never been attacked at the end of the first war. Voldemort had attacked the Longbottoms first, turning Neville into the Boy-Who-Lived. According to the notes scrawled in the margins in a looping, feminine script, Neville was the son of Frank Longbottom and a near-squib witch who had been willing to let Alice take credit for continuing the Longbottom line in exchange for a life of comfort. She had been hired on as Neville's nanny after delivering him and had been the sole adult home when Voldemort attacked, imparting the same protection upon death that allowed him to become the Boy-Who-Lived of this world while still retaining both parents. Or at least both publicly known ones. Just like Harry did, this Neville now possessed the lightning bolt scar that marked him as Voldemort's supposed equal. Although assuming the prophecy here was the same, it confirmed a suspicion of Harry's and finally provided an answer to an ongoing argument of his with Dumbledore… not that he'd be able to tell the man now.

That raised two interesting questions, though, and Harry made sure he was alone before wandlessly conjuring up a mirror. Well, any reference to his scar would be in the past tense from here on out. It was gone now. Interesting. And if that was true, then… another wave of his hand created a small, silvery-red viper. _§ Hello? §_

After turning back and forth to assess its surroundings, tongue flicking out of its mouth to taste the air, the viper raised its head to stare at Harry. _§ What is it that you desire, Master? §_

Even more interesting. He apparently had shed his link to Voldemort but had somehow retained the most infamous power he'd inherited from the Heir of Slytherin. He reminded himself to look on the bright side: at least it meant that he could still read his parselscript journal. Losing that would have been a royal pain in the arse. With a quick Vanishing Charm, the viper was gone and Harry went back to reading about the recent past. Or at least recent in so far as this world was concerned; losing close to a decade was playing havoc with his sense of relative time.

Moving on to just after Voldemort's fall, Harry discovered that Igor Karkaroff had again betrayed his comrades and provided the Ministry with a list of names. Lucius had again bought his way out of trouble, the Lestrange trio was in Azkaban, albeit for crimes unnamed… and Peter Pettigrew had not only been named, but captured and imprisoned? That was new. He was currently serving three consecutive life sentences in Azkaban for crimes also not listed in the book but was, at least at the time of printing, still alive. Harry checked the publishing information. A year ago. How that weak, pitiful, miserable excuse for a human being had been able to survive this long, even with the benefit of his animagus form, Harry had no idea.

It was so odd, finding himself in a place where things he'd taken for granted as 'fact' weren't anymore, while other things that had been completely and totally screwed up in his world were finally set to rights. Letting his thoughts wander down that path led Harry to wondering if his original self here had kept a journal, so he could get a better idea of how he was supposed to behave around everyone. Even if this wasn't really his family, it was the closest he'd ever get and the last thing he wanted was to be torn away because Dumbledore thought he was a renegade Death Eater impersonating Harry Potter or something.

As time marched on and day turned into night, Harry continued to read, totally unaware of the progression of time. Dinner passed without him noticing and it wasn't until his stomach rumbled noisily that he realized it'd been a while since he'd last eaten. Closing his book, he looked up and found his mother standing in the doorway with a plate of food. "Hi?"

"Hey, Harry. You missed dinner. And that explanation you owe me." Lily entered the library, setting his dinner down in front of him. "So… last chance. Your father will be home in twenty minutes or so and if I don't have something to tell him…"

Harry had been thinking about this one on and off for a good chunk of the afternoon, and was pretty sure he'd finally come up with an acceptable answer. Hopefully. Maybe. He'd had plenty of incidents of accidental magic at Privet Drive; what were the odds that he hadn't had any here? "Well, I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I took a shower and still nobody else was up… so I was sitting there staring out the window wondering if that first train up the Maritime Line had gone by yet. Next thing I know, I feel like I'm being squeezed through this really tight tube and then I'm standing on that little stone bridge on Trewedna Lane, looking down at the track."

Closing her eyes, Lily let out a muttered string of swears in four languages - English, French, Cornish, and one that even Harry didn't recognize - before calming herself and sighing noisily. "I keep telling your father that we need to deal with that. 'It's not accidental magic when he's apparating six or seven times a month, James.' 'If he does it after July 31st, we're in deep shit, James.' But no. It'll sort itself out. Having a wand will settle your magic down. Trust him, he's the pureblood and he knows all about magical children. Well fine. If he's not going to take responsibility for his children and help me with this, then he's not allowed to be mad when his decisions come back to bite him on the ar… erm, bum." Looking around at the books Harry had pulled from the shelves for research, Lily arched a brow. "Need help finding something?"

There was a loud whoosh from downstairs and Harry shook his head. "Err, no thanks. Because if you're here, he'll come up here looking for you, and it'll make it harder to avoid the angry father by hiding in here." Lily opened her mouth to say something but Harry waved his hand. "He was angry when he left and I don't think he's in a better mood now. All the crazies come out at night, so he probably had more work than his normal shift. So it's probably better if I'm out of his hair until he relaxes a bit. Even if it is all his own fault."

Lily grimaced before nodding her assent. "Alright. I'll check in on you later." Heading for the library door, she shook her head sadly. "One of these days, I'll figure out a way to avoid Azkaban and then I'll kill those damn Longbottoms for turning my husband into…"

Another interesting bit of information that Harry filed away for further review as he went back to reading and began blindly consuming his dinner. It wasn't bad, although the chicken was awfully bland. So were the vegetables, for that matter. Given that they were living in Cornwall, which was growing in culinary importance as its primary industry shifted from mining to farming and fishing, and his mother seemed to be the stay at home type, he'd - perhaps irrationally - expected better. Then again, had that happened yet here? Would it happen here? Did it matter? Bland food was bland, no matter what the reason. Hmm. Maybe there was a way he could impart a bit of his own culinary experience onto his mother without her becoming suspicious?

Eventually, the clock struck nine and Harry decided to relocate to his room as he heard his mother puttering around, taking care of the twins. As he entered his own room, he again had to squash his paranoid instincts; his parents would not react well to finding an array of locking and privacy charms on his door.

As he changed into a pair of pajamas, Harry frowned as he inspected his pudgy body. Maybe be could find more chores to do that involved walking places outside of this weekly market run he was being sent on tomorrow. While he was nowhere close to Dudley's level of fatness, he had surpassed where Neville was back in first year in his old universe. Which definitely wasn't the lean, muscular figure he was used to. He definitely had to start working out again; even if he wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived in this world, he wasn't going to just sit back and let Voldemort run wild. Neville might be the only one capable of killing the bastard in this dimension because of Trelawney's damned prophecy, but that didn't mean he couldn't help. And kill a whole lot of Death Eaters along the way.

Hmm. Well, when in doubt, fall back on his normal Privet Drive workout: long walks that became long jogs that became long runs. Setting his alarm clock for five in the morning, which would hopefully get him up before the rest of the family, Harry crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

The next month at Potter Manor was fun for Harry once he managed to settle in and find his place. It was just like he'd always dreamed life in a world with no Voldemort would have been like. Well, almost. He would have preferred two loving parents but a loving mother and a distant father was close enough for his tastes. And the two sisters and cool older cousin made up for James's absence pretty well. It was like being back at the Burrow again, back in the days before Ginny became an obsessive stalker and his friendship with Ron imploded. Except here at Potter Manor, he didn't feel bad about a poor family taking in yet another mouth to feed and could relax and enjoy things more. He'd even found a journal, stashed under a floorboard in his room, filled with entries in wince-worthy attempted English by this universe's original Harry. Having read that from cover to cover a few times, he was now doing a much better job of fitting in… or at least he was only arousing a little suspicion as he subtly began changing their expectations of him to match who he really was.

Returning from his five-mile morning run - which was actually a run these days, instead of a walk around Perranarworthal like when he'd started - Harry looked at the clock and smiled. He'd shaved another few seconds off his previous best time. Excellent. The house was still as quiet as a tomb and so after using a few spells to freshen up until he could take a proper shower, Harry decided to treat his family to breakfast. After all, he was up and surely his mother would enjoy a break from cooking. That, and after years with the Dursleys, it felt downright odd to be staying at home and not cooking every meal.

With the experience gleaned from years of cooking for the Dursleys, Harry worked quickly but efficiently, cooking up portions of scrambled eggs, sausages, black pudding, bacon, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, baked beans, and hash browns suitable for his family of six. He'd seen in the past how much food his family could pack away, especially his father, although Jasmine and Rose weren't exactly pixies either. And none of the three could hold a candle to his cousin when it came to packing food away. As much as it looked like on the counter, Harry severely doubted there'd be anything left when they were done. Footsteps on the stairs alerted him that his family was awake, and Harry grabbed the serving platters and bowls, moving them to the table in the breakfast nook. His mother and the twins were the first to arrive, stopping dead in the doorway and staring in disbelief at the breakfast he'd prepared. "Morning."

Jasmine was the first to break out of her stupor, hurrying over to the table while eyeing the food hungrily. "Wow, Harry. I never knew you could cook."

"Uh, well, I can't. Or would that be couldn't? I found a cookbook in the library that had moving pictures so you could watch everything being done from all kinds of angles. After watching it for a month now, I decided it didn't look too hard and I figured I'd give it a try." Technically it was true… for the Harry of this universe. He'd found the book, tried his hand at it, failed miserably, and been stuck scrambling to clean up the evidence before his mom came down to cook breakfast. This time around, though, Harry had succeeded, although it wasn't exactly his first time in the kitchen and he had actual skill rather than just having peeked at a book.

Lily just smiled and kissed Harry on the cheek. "Is that what you've been up to whenever I catch you in the library?" Err… not at all, but it sounded like a good excuse, so Harry nodded. "I'm so proud of you, Harry." He blushed as his sisters mocked him, but their amusement at his expense didn't keep them from descending on the food like Ron Weasley, serving up heaping plates for themselves that they began to devour. His mother followed suit, albeit a good deal more slowly and neatly. Biting into one of the fried mushrooms, she let out a moan the likes of which Harry had previously only heard when he interrupted romantic interludes while on patrol. Well then. Evidently she liked his cooking?

Stumbling into the kitchen, Nymphadora 'Dora' Black announced herself with a sleepy 'wotcher' before plopping herself down into a chair and fixing herself a plate. Finding out that she was the occupant of the locked bedroom on the first floor had been a validation of his suspicions but at the same time a hell of a shock. The original Harry had never felt the need to document his family tree and so it had taken a bit of creative questioning, eavesdropping, and detective work to figure out why the young woman lived at Potter Manor. Evidently Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband had dropped by to 'chat' with her sister Andromeda shortly before the end of the war and had executed Ted Tonks before turning their attention to Andromeda herself. Showing herself to be a true daughter of the House of Black, Andromeda had led them on a running battle through the house, all the way up to Dora's room, at which point she'd managed to actually overpower and blow through the anti-apparition ward her sister had cast over the house. She'd arrived in the lobby of St. Mungo's and promptly dropped dead from a burnt out magical core, at which point Lily had taken the parentless Dora as a favor for Sirius, seeing as how she and James had both the spare room and the experience with raising children, while Sirius and Anastasiya had no such experience and called a different hotel in a different city each week 'home'.

Dora began to choke and gasp and Lily rolled her eyes before drawing her wand and flicking it. A glowing hand appeared in the air behind the metamorphmagus before swinging down and slapping her hard on the back. Two chunks of half-eaten mushroom came flying out of her mouth to land on the table, eliciting squeals of disgust from the twins before Lily could vanish the mess. Tucking her wand away, the older redhead just rolled her eyes. "There's this newfangled thing called 'chewing', Dora. Try it for me, would you?"

Hair shifting from the long black curls of her base form to a long, straight, bright red mane, Dora ducked her head in an attempt to hide her blush. "Sorry, Aunt Lily. This is really good, though." After a few seconds, her hair shortened and lightened into the bubblegum pink spikes that Harry was used to seeing and she gave Harry a thumbs up before selecting a fried tomato, popping it into her mouth, and chewing with exaggerated slowness.

"Hey, what's that smell?" James was the last to make his presence known, stumbling into the kitchen with his hair mussed and standing up strangely. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just trying to do something new with it today? "Wow, Lily. You haven't bothered cooking a full breakfast for something other than a holiday in… Merlin knows how long, actually. What's the occasion?"

Shrugging, Lily swallowed another mouthful of mushroom before pointing her fork at Harry. "Ask him. He's the one who cooked it."

James almost missed his chair as he stared at Harry in disbelief. "What… Harry? Since when can you..?"

"Wow!" Everyone turned to look at Jasmine, who was staring at Harry with wide eyes. "I wanted to try everything first to make sure he hadn't gotten lucky… it's all great! Sorry, Mum, but Harry's a way better cook than you. No offense."

Rose nodded in agreement as James stared at his food suspiciously, looking from it to Harry and back several times. "Considering your mother has been cooking longer than Harry's been alive, I find that hard to believe." After serving up a bit of everything for himself, he decided to try a forkful of Harry's scrambled eggs first. After chewing slowly and swallowing, he turned to stare at Harry with an unreadable expression on his face. "Huh. I'll be damned."

Letting out a vaguely affirmative noise, Lily sliced off a piece of her fried tomato and popped it into her mouth before patting Harry's hand. "Sweetie, this is wonderful. Would you like to help me cook breakfast from now on?"

Looking up from where he was cutting up a piece of sausage for himself, Harry continued to blush from all the compliments, only to freeze at the question. "Honestly, it was just going to be a one-time thing. I wanted to give you the morning off because you cook all the time."

"Can't you give me all the mornings off then?" Lily held up a piece of sausage speared on the end of her fork. "But no, seriously, this is amazing, especially for a first timer, and…"

As much as he loved his new family, he had no desire to be trapped in a situation like at the Dursleys and Harry held up his hand. "It's okay, Mum. How about I'll help out with both breakfast and lunch sometimes, but only if you're there with me? I like your cooking too, you know." Well, it was enjoyable enough. Even after a few subtle hints, her stuff still trended towards the blander side of things, except for when she dove into the cookbooks that Sirius and Anastasiya had brought home for her at the end of their world tour. What in the world was 'chicken fried steak'? He understood the 'fried steak' part, but what did chickens have to do with it?

Lily smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "Okay. And thank you for cooking this morning, it was sweet of you. I'm sure the girls are going to be all over you when you're older. A man who knows how to be useful around the house is hard to find." James scowled at her comment but Lily quelled him with a glare and the family went back to eating, chattering about everything and yet nothing at all over breakfast.

The first to finish eating, James disappeared into his study for a few minutes, emerging in the red cloak of an auror and disappearing through the floo to go to work. Tonks likewise disappeared to her room upstairs before returning with a similar garment, subtle differences marking it as the cloak of a trainee instead of a full-fledged auror, and stepping through the floo herself. The twins finished next, disappearing back upstairs to change and get ready for their day, leaving Harry alone at the table as his mother began to levitate the dirty dishes towards the sink. After flaring green again, the floo deposited a familiar brunette in the kitchen and Harry waved to Cassie. Standard weekday procedure for the family, he had quickly learned; evidently Anastasiya had a career and so Lily had become the de facto childcare provider for both families. The half-veela girl let out a squeak and blushed, ducking her head, and Harry sighed before sliding off his chair.

Shower versus annoyingly shy preteen admirer.

Shower won hands down.

After emerging from the shower, feeling a good deal more human than when he'd entered, Harry went into his room and retrieved the copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ he'd found in the library before curling up in a chair in the living room. Who would have thought the book was so interesting? Well, apart from Hermione? It also helped him see that, apart from who Voldemort had attacked, the only differences between the two realities were those in the last ten years or so. Slytherin wasn't suddenly a hero of the wizarding world, and it was still Helga rather than Herbert Hufflepuff or something bizarre like that. It was comforting to know that he could at least expect school to be familiar, even if the people around him weren't.

He was left largely alone for at least an hour, until someone perching on the arm of his chair interrupted his solitude. Looking up, he found himself staring into the blue-grey eyes of Cassie. His other self's journal had done him a world of good in understanding the brunette and how she fit into both the Potter family as a whole and his life in specific: she crushed on him, the twins didn't approve, and his original self had thought girls were gross and gone out of his way to mock and torment her.

He, on the other hand, saw the value in making friends with Cassie and reshaping her interest into something more platonic. After all, if she persisted in crushing on him, he could be in for a world of trouble when her aura manifested. He knew he could easily repress a quarter-veela's general aura, but he'd never tried a half-veela or a veela of any degree who was specifically interested in him. Not to mention a woman scorned with the ability to warp most men into willing servants was a very dangerous woman indeed. So being far nicer to Cassie was near the top of his to-do list and now was the perfect time to start, at least in his mind. "Hey, Cassie."

"Hiya." Blushing, Cassie fidgeted on the arm of his chair, causing Harry to instinctively wrap one arm around her waist to still her the way he did with Hermione when she was excited. That just made her blush darker and Harry quickly pulled his arm away from her. Her hand shot out, grabbing his wrist and halting his retreat as she examined him. "Wow. Have you been working out?"

Well that was convenient. He'd been looking for some way to tie his two newest 'not Harry' behaviors together and she had given him an opening to do it with just one lie. "Yeah. I heard that fit wizards are more powerful - I mean, look at our dads compared to some of the fat lumps we've seen when we go to Diagon Alley - so I've been running in the morning. It'll come in handy, especially if I'm a Gryffindor or Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. Their common rooms are both on the seventh floor of the school, and then there are stairs in their towers to get up to the dorms. Older you get, the higher you have to climb. Anyways, after I started running, I kept coming home hungry and breakfast was either half-ready or Mum was still in bed. So I started looking into how to cook my own food." Cassie nodded at that one; it did sound sensible enough. Gently prying his arm out of her grasp, Harry cast about for a question that would turn the conversation away from himself. "Can you cook? Both your parents are purebloods and most of them think housekeeping is 'woman's work'… not that Uncle Sirius or Dad would ever let my mum catch them saying that."

Cassie shook her head, a small frown on her face. "I try to cook, but I'm pants at it. I think even my dad is better than I am, and he managed to blow up that muggle toaster your mum bought him. It's okay, though. I have years to get the hang of it before I'm married and need to cook for my family."

As much as he wanted to, Harry resisted the urge to comment on that. After all, while neither the Blacks nor Weasleys were dark, both retained the somewhat male chauvinist ideas about the world that were popular in the wizarding world. It was just the way society operated. So instead of urging her to throw off the shackles of the patriarchy and tell men where to shove it when they asked her to cook dinner, Harry decided on another route, one that would also advance his friend agenda. "If you want, maybe your dad will let you floo over here a bit earlier in the mornings. I'm going to be helping Mum with breakfast and lunch sometimes and you could learn from us."

"Really? Oh, thanks Harry!" Cassie slid off the arm of the chair and into his lap, hugging him tight. Harry just patted her awkwardly on the back. Wait a second. On second thought, was this really going to help with the crush problem or just make it worse? After pondering the matter for a few seconds, Harry decided it likely would. Hopefully forcing her to spend time around him in such a mundane activity instead of admiring him from afar would show her that he was just Harry, rather than something worth getting worked up about.

Besides, they'd grown up together thanks to the closeness of their families. She was practically his sister. Cassie crushing on him was just… wrong.

When the day of his birthday arrived, Harry received another first: the first birthday party ever thrown for him by his family. While the party itself wasn't too different from the ones he'd spent with the Weasleys - apart from the people present, obviously - the fact that it was his family that he had celebrated it with made it all the more special for him. For once, his father had actually remembered that he was a part of the family, and the non-Dora Blacks had attended as well. Remus had poked his head in briefly to hand off a gift before retreating, citing post-transformation tiredness, but that hadn't been nearly as interesting as the two surprising guests: Narcissa Malfoy and a polite but aloof girl who looked to be roughly his age, both of whom sported black hair shot with streaks of a familiar shade of blonde. Neither Lucius nor Draco had come with the pair, meaning the Potters and Malfoys weren't somehow the best of friends in this world for no apparent reason… which only raised more questions about how the two had ended up there.

Still, Narcissa had spoken to him politely and handed him a gift before heading over to sit with Lily and Anastasiya while her daughter - Altaira when scolded, but otherwise simply Tara - seemed to get along well enough with Cassiopeia, so he wasn't inclined to paint this Narcissa with the same brush as her husband, at least for now. And he couldn't do such a thing with Tara until he figured out exactly who the heck the girl was and whether or not he should be wary of her.

His presents were nothing special and yet incredibly special at the same time: clothes, books, trinkets from Zonko's… nothing of earth-shattering significance, but full of sentimental value in that they were the first presents he'd received from his parents. Well, that he could remember at any rate; he assumed they'd bought him presents for his first birthday in the old world but damned if he could remember what they'd gotten him. He'd half-expected socks or something from Narcissa, but his school nemesis's mother had instead purchased him a forearm holster for the wand he'd soon be getting. Curiouser and curiouser.

Later that day, after the party was over and only the Potters - and Dora - remained at the house, Harry received an owl from Hogwarts inviting him to attend and faked jumping for joy and all the other antics he figured were probably appropriate for a kid his physical age. Like there'd been any doubt he'd be attending his parents' alma mater. His mother's smile seemed a bit strained, and it took him a moment to realize why: her first child was leaving the nest, even if it was only for ten months at a time. It had to be hard for her.

Unsurprisingly, Harry received a visitor that evening while reading in bed: his mother. He ignored her opening the door to check on him, used to her making the rounds each night, but when she entered his room and sat on the end of his bed, he put a bookmark in to save his place and dropped his book onto the nightstand. "Harry?"

"Yes, Mum?"

Lily leaned over, wrapping her arms around him. "Harry honey, I'm going to miss you when you go off to Hogwarts."

Oh bugger, she was sniffling. Harry hated crying women. Patting her on the back, he tried to make a joke. "No, you're just going to miss the chocolate chip muffins I bake for breakfast once a week." Lily let out a watery chuckle. "And bacon that's not burnt on one end."

"How do you do that, anyway?" Lily let go of him, using her wand to conjure up a handkerchief and wipe her eyes.

Harry shrugged, a small grin on his lips. "That one burner's not working quite right. The heat's not even so unless you move the bacon around while it's cooking, there's one part that gets cooked more than the rest. You might wanna get that looked at."

That made her stop and blink for a moment. Likely she wasn't even aware magical stoves could be imperfect. Unlike muggle technology, the fact that wizarding appliances ran on magic generally meant that it either worked… or it didn't. Stoves were one of the few things Harry could think of that could keep working, albeit not working right, as time went on. "Oh. I'll tell your father to have someone come and check it out. Thanks, Harry." She sighed, ruffling his hair. "You're turning into such a little genius. Just like me. Thank God; I was worried you'd turn out like your father."

That caught Harry's attention; it was the first time he'd ever heard one parent speak ill of the other to any degree. "Oh?"

"I don't want to speak badly of your father… but he wasn't the best person when he was back in school. He liked to prank people, make fun of them… he was a bully, Harry." Lily sighed, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. "He grew out of it, of course, and I fell in love with him and we married, but the way you were acting, it was like him all over again. I'm so glad you've started growing up already, instead of taking until sixth year like he did."

Harry just shrugged; he honestly couldn't see himself as a bully after growing up under Dudley's fist and so she was essentially thanking him for being himself instead of the son she'd given birth to. "I'll do my best. I mean, Dad may have a big important job and all, but you're the one who does the real hard work. I can't imagine having a better role model for who I'd want to be when I grow up than you, Mum."

A moment later, Harry regretted that as his mother teared up again and pulled him into a hug, crying on his shoulder. 


	3. Chapter 3

3\. Jeg Har Kommet Tilbake

When Harry woke up early the next morning, he felt someone warm lying next to him. Opening his eyes, he blinked and tried to process what he was seeing. A redhead was lying in bed with him… Ginny? Had he gotten sucked back into his old universe and found by his stalker, who'd decided to take some liberties with his unconscious body figuring she'd never have another chance? Or slid through time and space again to another new universe where he had no taste and actually was with Ginny? Then he wandlessly summoned his glasses and put them on, the fuzzy world snapping into crystal clarity.

Oh. It was his mother. Right. Last night had ended with the talking, then the crying, then more talking until she ended up running out of energy and falling asleep in his bed. Wow, the fact that he'd made that particular association added a whole new dimension of creepy to any thoughts involving him and Ginny in a romantic relationship. Then again, even if he was a hair Oedipal - which he most definitely was not - but on the off chance that he turned out to be… did it really matter? As long as he didn't go killing his father or actually shagging his mother, everything was fine, right?

…yeah, no thanks.

Sneaking out of bed was a bit more difficult than he anticipated owing to his smaller body, but eventually he succeeded and made his way down to the kitchen to start breakfast. Today he was going to Diagon Alley to get his supplies. He'd tried to talk his parents into letting him go alone, but alas it was not to be. Which was understandable; they thought he was an eleven-year-old with little practical magical knowledge and no way to defend himself. Still, he knew Ollivander's was going to cause problems for him and Harry wished he could make at least that part of the trip alone.

At least it would just be him and his mother. His father was - surprise surprise - working, and Lily was trusting the twins and Cassie to stay out of trouble. Or if something catastrophic did happen, Dora was home on a study day and would be in her room if something catastrophic happened. After all, with only him going off to Hogwarts this year, it didn't make sense to turn the shopping trip into a family outing. It worked out better for Harry that way; he was a lot closer to his mother than his father and if anything odd happened, she'd be a lot easier to talk into hiding his secrets, even from James. After all, she was keeping secrets of her own from him…

As he trooped down the steps, Harry realized that his case of mistaken identity that morning was the first time he'd thought of anyone from his old universe since his arrival. The more he thought about it, though, the more sense it made. He had no real idea how he'd gotten here, much less how to get back home, and would soon be starting school all over again with the people he'd once known. Sure they wouldn't be the same versions he'd once known but they'd be close enough and granted he'd never see the old ones again… why go on mourning their absence? Not that there were many people he genuinely missed. Plus this world had living versions of a number of people who were gone in his world. Lily, Sirius, Remus, Tonks… Hannah, Neville, Daphne, and Luna presumably. That more than made up for the loss of Su in his mind.

Harry was snapped out of his thoughts when his mother kissed him on the cheek, joining him at the stove as he prepared breakfast for the family. Now that he was helping most mornings as well as pitching in with the other two meals every now and again, his sisters were getting off easy and were quite happy about the fact. He didn't mind, though. It gave him plenty of time to spend with his mother and it cut down on the overall amount of whining in the house now that they weren't being forced to cook against their will. The amount of burnt food making it to the kitchen table had also decreased markedly since he'd replaced them as Lily's primary kitchen helper. Whether they actually lacked domestic skills and his parents were too stubborn to let them stop or it was a passive-aggressive attack for being forced to do something they disliked, Harry wasn't sure. But whatever the reason, burnt food was still burnt and he was glad he didn't have to eat it anymore.

When they were done, they moved the food to the kitchen table and Harry went for the door, intending to go wake up his dad and siblings. "Harry." He stopped, looking back at his mother, who shook her head. "We're going to eat without them and leave early. Sooner we're there, sooner we'll be done and back here."

Made sense. Harry murmured his assent and sat down at the table, quickly assembling a plate of food and getting to work on it. The more time he spent with her, the more he was sure that Hermione had somehow managed to possess a redheaded body and come back in time. Lily reminded him of Hermione before the final battle… or maybe it should be the other way around. Both were smart, strict when they needed to be, kind when they didn't, and overbearing in a protective, motherly way. Granted his mother was a bit more outgoing and creative than Hermione, but they were still very similar. Maybe that's why he was so drawn to Lily in this time and place? Or maybe it was why he'd befriended Hermione in his native reality? Chicken or the egg? Egg or the chicken?

After they finished eating breakfast, Lily cast Stasis Charms over the remainder of the food to keep it hot and fresh for the others before leading Harry towards the fireplace. "Like I said, I figured it didn't make sense for us to wait for them. Sooner we're there, sooner we're done and back. And no offense? But as much as I want to do this with you, I don't trust the girls to behave themselves all day long. So I figure we'll do your shopping, hit… the Leaky Cauldron!" Throwing floo powder into the fire, Lily disappeared in a flash of green flames and Harry followed suit, stumbling out upon arrival in London but managing to stay mostly upright. "…the Leaky Cauldron for lunch, and then you can sort everything out while I clean up whatever messes the girls have made and chew out Dora for not keeping them in line since she's home for a study day."

Nobody reacted apart from a simple nod of Tom's head, which was a novel experience for Harry. Ever since his first visit to the wizarding world with Hagrid, he'd been mobbed most anywhere he went. Well, except for fifth year, but that didn't count because the Ministry had turned the population against him. But now… nobody knew who he was. Nobody cared. It was bloody awesome, to borrow one of Ron's favorites.

Their first stop after entering Diagon Alley was Gringotts, much to Harry's displeasure. Unfortunately, he couldn't articulate why he was so ill at ease around the goblins without sharing his entire story with his mother and that just wasn't happening, at least not any time soon. But after watching the goblins side with Voldemort in an attempt to gain more rights than the Ministry was willing to give them, Harry could barely resist the urge to start throwing hexes as his mother led him to the teller's counter, then down to their vault in one of the carts.

Humanity had ultimately gotten the last laugh, though. The Order of the Phoenix, led by Dumbledore and Harry himself, had decided to drop by and show the goblins the error of their ways. While their wards had held out for two days, as the goblins waited desperately for reinforcements from their Dark Lord, Luna had ultimately been the downfall of Gringotts. She'd flooed to remind Harry that he was missing their six month anniversary, images of what he should have been doing instead of laying siege to goblins had popped into his head, and one almighty burst of power from his war hammer had brought the wards crashing down, killing a number of goblins who had tied their very life forces to said wards.

The goblins had promptly surrendered to the Ministry.

It was decidedly odd to see people actually in Gringotts again. After the betrayal, siege, and reclamation of the sole wizarding bank, most people had withdrawn their money. While the economy hadn't collapsed entirely, since people still had to go to work and pay for items and services rendered, it had taken a major hit as credit, loans, and other complex forms of finance ceased to exist. As they exited into the bright sunlight, Harry put it out of his mind. That had never happened here and, unless he seriously screwed something up, never would.

Although sometimes walking past stores would conjure up memories of the past, like the currently empty storefront that would someday house Fred and George's dream, Harry mostly managed to keep his mind on the present, thanks largely in part to his mother. Who would have thought that shopping could actually be somewhat fun? His first time around had been, but second year was marred by the Malfoys and the Lockhart incident, third year by having to look over his shoulder for Sirius Black, and after that, the specter of Voldemort's second rise had hung over public areas like a dark cloud the few times he had been able to escape Grimmauld Place.

Their first stop was Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions for his school robes and some other new clothes to fit his taller but slimmer figure that he could wear on nights and weekends. Shopping for new clothes was something he hadn't found too enjoyable the few times he'd gotten to do it, but being fitted and picking out clothes was a lot more fun with his mother there to tease him and make suggestions. It was definitely a far different experience than his last shopping trip with a companion, where the Weasleys had been forced to sit there and watch him be fitted for new clothes, Ron sulking all the while, before heading to the second-hand store themselves.

Actually, that had been his second to last trip with company. The last had been a good deal more fun, at least until Madam Malkin had thrown him and Luna out of her store after catching them snogging in one of her changing rooms.

It was while he was in Madam Malkin's that Harry saw one of the first connections to his old world, or rather his first connection with the Hogwarts of his old world. After picking out a few outfits he wanted in addition to the school uniform he'd need to wear to class, Harry was led back to a corner of the store with platforms for measuring the patrons and making the necessary adjustments to their purchases. All three spots were occupied, though, with three very familiar faces. Well, two very familiar faces and one fairly familiar one. He'd never seen Parvati sneer quite like that in his original world, much less at her own sister. "Can't believe our parents still can't tell us apart even after ten years. Oh well. Sucks to be you, I suppose. Hope you enjoy being grounded for a week, bookworm."

Rolling her eyes, Padma kept her arms out from her sides as one of Malkin's assistants adjusted her black Hogwarts robe. "Whatever you say, sister. But that's my favorite sweater. Make sure it's back in my dresser by tomorrow or I might decide to crack open one of Father's books and try my hand at human transfiguration a few years early. On you. After all, if you want his attention, what better way to get it than to let him fuss over you while he tries to put you back together?" Parvati paled as Padma shook her head in dismay. "One of these days, maybe you'll figure out that negative attention isn't better than no attention at all."

"Nagging bore."

"Attention seeking brat."

Huh. That was interesting. While Harry was very well aware that Padma and Parvati were different people, he'd never seen them being openly antagonistic to each other. A bemused disinterest at most; Padma preferring the less 'wooly' subjects like Ancient Runes and Arithmancy instead of her sister's predilection for Divination, while Parvati wasn't too impressed with her sister's overly studious behavior. Still, they at least got along most of the time. These two weren't quite at him and Draco levels of enmity, but they definitely didn't seem friendly to him either.

The third and closest of the fitting platforms was occupied by someone who had become very familiar over his final three months in the old world. Su Li stood there stoically as the Patil twins sniped at each other next to her and the seamstress adjusted the hemline of one of her black uniform skirts. Well, Su Li to those who weren't closet enough to her to have received 'the name speech'. And… wait. Black? That was new, Harry mused, before looking down at the slacks that were draped over his arm. He hadn't even noticed at the time, but here it seemed the uniforms were white and black instead of white and dark gray. Both genders wore a white button front shirt, black vest, and a tie that was being sold black but Harry guessed would shift to match the student's house colors after they were sorted. The boys' section had offered both black slacks and short trousers, while the only option available to girls were black knee-length skirts. Harry also remembered seeing a display at the front of the store that featured stockings, tights, and knee socks - all in black - and was willing to bet good money that the girls were not only required to wear one of the three but that they would take on the girl's house colors as well. Which was nice. The grey uniforms were just so… drab.

Eyes wandering back to Su, Harry stared at her as he debated whether or not to approach her. While she hadn't occupied a position in his inner circle of friends, at least until after everything had fallen apart and she'd become his only friend, she'd been in the intermediate ring: members of the DA he was closer to than the average student. And while he hadn't made her acquaintance until sixth year originally, there was nothing saying he couldn't change that this time around.

Harry was all too aware that he had an incredible advantage over his peers when it came to making friends at Hogwarts: he knew roughly how people were going to turn out as they got older and so he didn't have to worry about attaching himself to someone who seemed interesting in the here and now but would turn out to hurt him in the end. Or at least theoretically he did. Eyeing the Patil twins, Harry had to admit that his knowledge might not be entirely accurate in this new world.

In Su's case, assuming that she turned out to be anything like her original world counterpart, Harry 'knew' that Su would grow into an extremely bright witch even for a member of the house that prized intelligence, with deficiencies in Hogwarts's three wanded subjects that would prove easily correctible using Harry's 'stop thinking and make it happen' tutoring program. She was also a treasure trove of information from her homeland, ranging from Mandarin - which he really did want to continue learning if for no other reason than to provide him and Su with a 'secret' language to communicate in - to the foreign magic she'd unleashed upon the Death Eaters in the several battles she'd participated in to the tai chi she'd coaxed Harry into trying. Granted he'd proven to have absolutely no aptitude for it, but others in his eventual circle of friends might. And - unless things turned out completely differently here - she'd grown into a bloody gorgeous young woman to boot. She was like Cho without the waterworks, and with a quicker mind, more potent wand, and plumper rear. There was much she could teach him and he could offer her tutoring in any or all Hogwarts subjects as compensation. It presented a win-win situation for both of them. He learned, she learned… and she'd provide some pretty damn good scenery for him to enjoy once they reached a certain age. Win-win-win?

Mind made up, Harry took a step forward and waited for her to look over at him before smiling. He had to fight to keep from reacting, though, as their gazes locked and Harry found himself staring into brilliant violet eyes instead of the brown, verging on black orbs he'd been expecting. After a second, he shrugged it off. Parvati was brattier than usual here, Dora was an orphan who lived in his house, his godfather had a wife and a daughter, and he had two sisters. Su having purple eyes really wasn't that big of a difference, all things considered. "Hi. I'm Harry Potter. You going into your first year at Hogwarts too?"

Su nodded, looking over at the Patil twins before jerking her head towards the empty space on the other side of her. Harry sidled up beside her and she lowered her voice. "Thank Merlin, someone in my year with at least a tiny bit of courtesy. My mother would tan my hide if I was behaving like that in public. Family problems are supposed to stay in the family, not get spread around for everyone to hear. I'm Li Su. Call me Su, because…"

"In China, the family name comes before the given name." Su's eyes widened and Harry grinned. "How about you don't assume all British wizards are the same and I won't ask you if you like eating sushi or what the weather's like near the Korean Academy?"

Leaning her head back, Su let out the first real laugh Harry had heard from her in either world. "Oh, I think I'm going to like you, Harry Potter. Deal. Now, what house do you think you're going to be in? I've spent most of my life traveling with my parents and now that I'm back in Britain for school, it seems like it's all kids can talk about…"

Harry bit his lip uncertainly as his mind raced; he knew that Su was supposed to end up in Ravenclaw and his words could influence her, sending her to another house the way Hagrid and Ron had influenced him by instilling a distaste for Slytherin that Malfoy only reinforced. But… well, he could have a little fun with it. "Let's just say I'm glad M comes before P in the alphabet. There's a certain someone I don't want to deal with and anywhere he's not is fine with me."

"Ah. You're doubly lucky." Harry raised an eyebrow and Su jerked her head towards the twins. "L comes before P, but P-o comes after P-a."

That made Harry wince. Not that being after them would be worth much; assuming the sorting went similarly, he was probably cursed to share a house with the bitchier of the twins again. Although Su might be luckier than she thought, he realized. "Just out of curiosity… was your letter addressed to Li Su or Su Li?"

"Li Su." Su didn't seem to get why he'd asked at first, and then understanding dawned. "Yours wasn't to Potter Harry, was it?"

Grinning, Harry shook his head before looking in the direction of the Patil twins. "Nope. And last time I checked, S comes after P. What the school doesn't know until after you tell your new Head of House won't hurt them, will it?"

Su let loose with another laugh and Harry decided he'd have to try and make her laugh as often as possible; it was a lovely sound. "So, new subject… where are you from? I'm from Harwich, up in Essex."

"Perranarworthal. Down in Cornwall. It's like Harwich, up in Essex, except warmer and dryer."

"Where the what now?" Su tried mouthing the name a few times before giving up and shaking her head. "I'm hoping that's not one of the coastal towns in Cornwall my parents have been talking about expanding into. Do you know how many hànzì it'd take to write that out?"

That made him chuckle and then the two lapsed into silence for a moment before something vitally important occurred to Harry. He was assuming Su could continue his lessons but, as the twins had shown him, not everyone was the same in this universe. So why was he assuming that she'd be the same as 'his' Su? On the other hand, how could he ask her what languages she knew or if she practiced tai chi or whether or not she knew any traditional Chinese magic without seeming… well, weird? Then the problem solved itself for him as Su sent another narrow-eyed look over at the Patil twins. "Xīwàng tāmen zài tóngyī suǒ fángzi. Wǒ nìngyuàn bǐ zhǐyǒu liǎng sān gè xuǎnzé." Hopefully they're in the same house. I'd rather have three choices than only two.

Harry frowned as he did his best to sort out her comments. She… wanted the twins in one house so she'd have more choices? He thought? As he mentally double-checked his translation, he replied without thinking. "Twins tend to go into the same house at Hogwarts, so you'll probably get lucky there."

"Nǐ zhīdào guānhuà?" You know Mandarin?

Harry nodded before realizing that he'd screwed up not once but twice in thirty seconds and abruptly paling. "Oh bugger." Looking around, he spotted his mother across the store and leaned in so he could talk to Su without being overheard. "Listen, I need you to forget what I just said." She looked at him oddly and he winced. "I'm an eleven-year-old half-blood from Cornwall. Yes, I do speak Mandarin - well, some that is - but I'm not supposed to be able to. It'll raise questions. Awkward questions."

Staring at him with those odd violet eyes, Su eventually nodded. "Right now, I'm wearing something that I stole from my mother. And it's worth about as much as you're going to be spending on school supplies this year. Maybe more." Harry raised an eyebrow and Su discreetly pointed out a middle aged Chinese woman in exotic red and gold robes browsing near his own mother. "I know something you don't want people to know. You know something I don't want people to know. We hold and protect the other's secret and maybe someday you'll tell me what you're hiding and I'll tell you what I'm hiding."

Behind Harry someone cleared their throat and he grimaced before stepping away again so the seamstress could finish her work on Su's skirt. "You know, you're definitely smarter than the average first year. Or at least the other first years I've met so far."

"You don't say?" Su shot a pointed look at where an Indian woman was dragging both Patil twins from the store as she barked at them harshly in Hindi. "Guess this means we're headed for Ravenclaw, then. Although I have to wonder… if at least a quarter of our classmates aren't as smart as us, are we going to get the best of a bad lot or will there be more Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Slytherins than Ravenclaws this year?"

Probably the former, Harry thought, but he could hardly relate his own experiences at Hogwarts with his perfectly allocated class of twenty boys and twenty girls that were broken into five a piece over four houses. "Don't know. But as long as we're in the same house, zhìshǎo wǒ de yǒurén zài wǒ de kǒuyīn yǔ."

Su winced. "Oh sweet Merlin, you're right. That accent does need work." She shook her head in dismay. "I never thought the language of my homeland could sound so ugly until I met my first Englishman."

"On behalf of my countrymen… ouch?"

Half an hour later Su was done and gone, having extracted a promise from him to send the family's owl Silver Star her way with a letter so they could continue their conversation, and Harry had then gone on to endure his mother's teasing about his 'new girlfriend' through the entire measuring session. From there, they'd filled out all the forms so the right garments would be tailored and owled to the house, and then - when his mother wasn't looking - Harry had added five black satchels with very specific requirements to the order with the option to purchase more in the future.

As he held the door open for Lily as she exited Madam Malkin's, mentally debating where they should go next, Harry ran into another familiar face. It was Neville with two vaguely familiar figures who he could only assume were the healthy versions of Frank and Alice Longbottom. Instead of the meek boy he had seen in his first year at Hogwarts, though, this one seemed stuck up and spoiled. Almost… Draco Malfoy, he realized. This Neville reminded him of Draco.

Neville passed in front of them, whining about how first years weren't allowed to bring brooms to Hogwarts, and Harry watched as his mother exchanged looks with Neville's parents. Unfriendly looks. Interesting. As soon as they were out of earshot, Harry tugged on the sleeve of his mother's robes. "So, that was the Boy-Who-Lived. Huh. Chubby little ponce." Lily let out a snort of laughter and Harry discreetly gestured to the departing trio. "So, what did they do to us?"

"How..?"

"I heard you muttering about wanting to kill them, for one." Harry grinned before mimicking the glare his mother had just shot at Alice Longbottom. "There was also that."

His mother sighed and gave him a wry grin. "You know, I'm almost starting to miss the days back when you weren't so smart and perceptive. Almost. Alright, well, I used to like them. Alice and I were actually really good friends before that fateful Halloween, and your father and Frank got on well enough. Then their son became the Boy-Who-Lived and suddenly they're acting like the world should bow down and kiss their feet. Frank almost got your father demoted at work because he wanted to be an auror captain too, but luckily Alastor Moody was retiring and a position opened up. And Alice decided I wasn't good enough to spend time with anymore, since she could spend her days having tea parties and gossiping with society's elite. Quit her job as an auror and everything so she could. They used to be such nice people, but now… they're practically the Malfoys."

"But you like the Malfoys."

"No, I like two Malfoys. Lucius and Draco can go rot for all I care."

Even as he was filing away the confirmation of his earlier assumption that Tara was indeed a Malfoy - his mother had said two, after all - Harry found himself revising his plans for the future. So much for his idea of helping Neville beat Voldemort. Even if Neville was the savior of the wizarding world - or the one supposed to be - Harry didn't think he'd be able to work with someone so similar to his former school nemesis. Maybe he could destroy the horcruxes on his own and then find a way to remove Voldemort without Neville's help? There was plenty of time to think about that, though. He couldn't make a move until Voldemort was back in a physical body he could destroy… and couldn't exactly go horcrux hunting as an eleven-year-old with parents who were watching over him.

Harry grabbed his mother's hand, leading her over to Magical Menagerie. As much as he loved Hedwig, he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle having an owl that was his and yet not all over again. So he figured a trip to look at the other pets was in order, to see if something caught his eye. Alas, though, he realized a flaw in his plan as he went from tank to cage to basket, looking over the different animals. He definitely wasn't a toad person. Rats reminded him of Pettigrew. And cats were cute and all, but not for him either. Hmm. So an owl it was, evidently. Then he realized something. "Mum? Can we go back to the Leaky Cauldron and have Jasmine or Rose floo over? Maybe both?"

"I'm not sure they're awake and dressed yet, sweetie." Lily furrowed her brow, most likely trying to figure out the reasoning behind his request. "Why?"

Gesturing to the pets around him, Harry sighed. "None of the first year pets really seem to fit me. I thought we could ask my sisters if one of them wanted an owl. They pick out the owl, I take it to Hogwarts this year, and next year they can have the owl back and I can get a better pet." Lily opened her mouth but Harry cut her off. "In _Hogwarts, A History_, it says second years and above can have any pet that isn't a threat to the safety of their fellow students."

Lily just beamed at him. "You're so smart. I didn't find that one out until fourth year and that was only because a prefect told me. Alright, let's go see if either your sisters have decided to crawl out of bed yet."

In the end, irony turned out to be a cruel, cruel mistress. Jasmine returned through the floo with their mother and joined them for a trip to Eeylops Owl Emporium. She and Lily went inside, only to emerge a few minutes later… with the owl that would have been Hedwig. The owl eyed him balefully, as if to say 'Why aren't you buying me, stupid boy?'. Thankfully, though, Jasmine was in a hurry to show off her new pet and disappeared back through the floo to Perranarworthal, leaving Harry and Lily to return to their shopping expedition. After a quick visit to Slug & Jiggers Apothecary to pick up a cauldron, scales, and all the ingredients he'd need for that year's potions, Harry was down to needing only his schoolbooks and a wand. "Mum? Can I use your schoolbooks? They're all the same, right?"

"I… think so, yes." Lily gave him an odd look for the question before taking the supply list from him to make sure. "Well, two of the books are different but just newer editions and I have them in the library at home. Why? It's not like we need to save money."

Harry didn't want to go with the truth, which was that he was hoping for a repeat of the Half-Blood Prince incident and was only starting now so his mother wouldn't get suspicious, which she probably would if he waited until fifth or sixth year to demand her books in hopes of finding tips and new spells. So instead, he decided to try something a bit sappier. "Well this is going to be the first time I'm leaving the house for more than a few days. It'll help me feel close to you while I'm at school. And… well, I bet Dad probably drew all over his or something."

Throwing her arms around him, his mother sniffled and hugged him tight. "That's so sweet, Harry. Of course you can use my books. I still have all seven years in my trunk in the attic, so you should be mostly set. And anything they've changed that we don't have in the library… well, it's probably not a book worth reading and I can give you something better. We should still visit Flourish and Blotts before we go home, though, to see if there's anything you find interesting. But for now, let's see if we can find you a wand, okay?"

As much as he wasn't looking forward to this, Harry nodded and the two trooped down the alley to Ollivander's. Just as they arrived, the Longbottoms exited looking grim, Neville staring down at a very familiar wand with an odd look on his face. Harry sighed. So much for him getting his old holly and phoenix feather wand back. That ought to make the shopping experience interesting, to say the least.

Their entrance was marked by a tinkling bell that rang somewhere in the depths of the shop and as Harry wandered towards the front counter, Lily waved her wand over the single, spindly chair against the wall, transfiguring it into something sturdier and more comfortable. A strangle tingle of magic - almost like occlumency or Anastasiya's veela allure - prickled against the back of his neck and Harry whirled around. "Mister Ollivander."

"Good morning. I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Harry Potter." It wasn't a question, but then Harry wasn't really expecting it to be. He'd already been through this once with the strange old man. Granted what wand he walked away with would be different this time, but the basic encounter would likely be quite similar. As he slipped past Harry, Ollivander glanced over at Lily. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her own wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, made of willow. A very nice wand for those adept at charms, although describing her as merely 'adept' would be quite the insult. Your father, on the other hand, favors a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it - it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

Harry nodded; he'd seen it more than a few times during the war, when witches and wizards on both sides had died due to miscast shields, having picked up the wrong wand after being disarmed. Not to mention the Elder Wand… "What about Nymphadora Black?" Ollivander looked at him oddly and Harry shrugged. "Just a bit curious. I've seen what my cousin can do with her wand and it's bloody wicked."

Tilting his head to one side, Ollivander stared off into space for a moment before responding to Harry's question. "Ten inches long, made of _Thuja occidentalis_ and rather unyielding. Unusual but unyielding… a bit like Miss Black herself, dare I say. But shall we save further wandering down memory lane for after we've found the right wand for you, Mister Potter? Which is your wand arm?" He'd been trained to use either hand by his dueling instructors, but volunteered his right hand just to avoid any awkward questions. "Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he worked, he launched into what Harry assumed was a standard speech. "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mister Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand." By now, Ollivander was wandering around behind the counter, flitting among the shelves as he gathered wand boxes, the tape measure still working away without its owner. "That will do." The tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor and Ollivander gestured for Harry to approach the counter. "Right then, Mister Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave."

Taking the proffered wand from Ollivander, Harry gave it a short wave. Before he could do anything else, Ollivander snatched it out of his hand and it was only his memories of his last time wand shopping that kept Harry from lashing out against the quick, grabby hands. Before he could say anything, a new wand was shoved into his hand. "Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try…" Harry went to wave the wand but he had hardly raised it when it too was snatched back by Ollivander. "No, no… here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."

Harry tried. And tried. If he hadn't lived through this once already, he was pretty sure he would have been getting more and more nervous as the pile of tried wands grew taller and taller on the counter. Actually, he was starting to get nervous. Neville already had 'his' wand. If it was gone, what was left in the store that would match well with him? What if his magic was only compatible with Voldemort's wand's brother and the one Dumbledore had given him? He neither steal Neville's wand without repercussions nor approach the headmaster about trying out a wand that he wasn't supposed to know existed. Just like the first time around, though, the more wands Ollivander pulled from the shelves to try, the happier he seemed to become. "Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, I haven't turned a customer away in all the years I've run this store and you won't be the first. The perfect match is here somewhere." Suddenly, he paused and gave Harry a long, considering look. "I wonder…"

As Ollivander disappeared into the back, Harry shot his bored looking mother a helpless shrug before peering down the aisle, wondering what was going on. Had Fawkes donated a third feather? Maybe this world's Voldemort was ambidextrous as well and had forced Ollivander to create another wand for him, the brother of which he was about to receive? Finally, the wandmaker returned holding a wooden box that, while unknown to Harry, had something about it that was familiar in the extreme: tendrils of the same odd metal that had adorned his second wand before its disappearance. "This… this is not one of my wands. It was made its way to my family over a millennia ago and has been waiting for its master to come ever since. Perhaps… perhaps that person is you, young Potter."

The wand inside the box made Harry gasp, not in awe like Ollivander and his mother would probably assume, but in recognition. It was… wait. His eyes narrowed. It was similar to his secondary wand, but was in fact a different wand. The tendrils of metal were slimmer and almost feminine, the wood a hair lighter as well. "What is it?"

"I am sure you are aware that the 'gods' the Greek muggles worshipped were, in fact, just very powerful wizards, correct?" Harry nodded his assent and Ollivander continued the story. "The same was true of the Norse 'gods'. One of the strongest members of that group - and the best known today - was a man named Thor Odinson, the self-styled 'God of Thunder'. Outside the town of Fritzlar, Germany, once stood a tree known as 'Thor's Oak', one of the most sacred sites of both wizards and pagan muggles at the time. It was there that Thor and eventually his children would meet regularly with their worshippers."

"But Thor and his ilk were 'gods' to a large number of people and had to travel far and wide to ensure all of them received adequate attention. While Thor was gone from the region during a period in 723 AD, a Christian muggle came to the town to convert the townspeople. He made a deal with the locals: they would allow him to strike Thor's Oak with an axe one time and if Thor did not strike him down for his blasphemy, they would convert to Christianity and allow him to fell the tree to build a church." Ollivander shook his head slowly, a wry smile on his lips. "Alas, Thor was in what is modern day Oslo at the time."

"When he returned to the area, he was furious as being abandoned by the muggles. After removing a piece of the church to keep for his own uses, Thor destroyed it utterly before taking the wood and, or so the legends go, shaping it into several wands. One was the wand he used for the rest of his life, which may still exist because its destruction was never confirmed. The others were given to his three children and step-son: sons Magni and Módi, daughter Thrúd, and step-son Ullr. The capture and destruction of three of those wands is written in the annals of history. Thrúd's wand, however, survived long enough to be passed on to her son, who in turn gave it to an ancestor of mine for safekeeping." Harry's eyes widened in surprised, and Ollivander nodded at the wand in the box. "Yes, Harry Potter. This is Rensaren, the wand of Thrúd Thordotter. Daughter of the 'God of Thunder'. Try it."

Holding his hand over the wand, Harry could already feel the tendrils of magic between it and him before his fingers even touched it. Then, the wand jumped the last few inches and leapt into his hand, his fingers curling instinctively around it as tendrils of lightning crawled up his arm. Images raced before Harry's eyes, of Viking warriors being led into battle by a gorgeous redhead swinging an axe with a blazing blue head. An axe. With barely a thought, the wand in his hand warped and reformed, the wood lengthening noticeably before the metal oozed up to form the head. Tipping his head back, he thrust the axe upward. "Jeg har kommet tilbake!"

The lightning playing over Harry's body rocketed upward, blowing a hole in the roof of the shop as it escaped up into the sky. It was answered by a return bolt of lightning that struck the head of the axe, making Harry gasp as a fiery feeling tore through his body. It was only the experience of numerous bouts of Cruciatus Curse at the hands of Voldemort that kept him from dropping to his knees, and even then he was sorely tempted.

Finally the pain stopped and Harry gasped in relief, sparing a thought to return his new wand to its natural state. He found Ollivander and his mother staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief and he shot them a sheepish grin before looking up at the hole in the ceiling. "Well, at least we finally found a wand that likes me." Stepping forward, he peered up through the hole in the ceiling of Ollivander's. "Although I don't think we took enough gold out of the vault to pay for that…" It was then that he noticed that his voice was off for the second time in two months and his hand shot up to touch his throat. "What the bloody hell?" Rather than reply, his mother merely conjured a mirror and handed it to him. Harry looked down just in time to see the face of a preteen girl - a curious mix of his sisters' features and and those of the redhead from his vision - staring back up at him before his features shifted back into the reflection he was used to. "…oh, that can't be good."

As the door shut behind his now-satisfied customers, Ollivander stared up at the hole in his ceiling incredulously. He'd seen a lot of destruction in his many years of fitting wands to customers who had practically no magical control, but this… this 'took the cake', as he'd heard one muggleborn's parent exclaim a few days before. Although why one would want to take a cake when they could buy it or bake one so easily with magic was still a mystery he'd yet to solve. Sighing, he conjured a temporary magical seal over the hole in case it started raining; it would have to do until he could contact Gringotts at the end of the day to have the goblins come repair and reinforce the building.

And what an oh-so-interesting day it had been so far. Not only had he sold the brother wand to young Tom Riddle's now infamous yew wand, but he'd found the partner of Thrúd's legendary wand as well. Heading to the rear of his shop, he sat down at his desk and contemplated a piece of parchment. Dumbledore would need to know about the Longbottom boy having that particular wand… but what of young Potter?

After a long minute, he shook his head. No, Dumbledore didn't need to know about Harry Potter and his wand until he found out about it himself. While Ollivander had no doubt the young man was headed for great things, he wanted them to be the great things the boy himself wanted… not the great things that Dumbledore guided him into thinking he should do.

And if Dumbledore eventually found out about young Mister Potter and couldn't resist the urge to meddle in his life… Ollivander fervently hoped that he actually succeeded this time. The last thing the wizarding world needed was another Tom Riddle. 


	4. Chapter 4

4\. Dinner, Deliberations, & Discovery

After leaving Ollivander's, Harry noticed his mother was strangely silent as they made their way to Flourish and Blotts Bookseller. "Mum?" She made a vaguely inquisitive noise, reminding him a bit of how he handled Hermione in those last days before coming to this world. Maybe that's where he got it from? "I'm still Harry, you know. I just have a… well, a bloody awesome wand."

"Language, Harry." Lily stopped for a moment and sighed before turning and hugging him tightly. "I know you are, sweetie. It's just… that wand is older than Hogwarts. And you called down a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. That's not what I was expecting. I mean… I have a galleon bet with your father as to whether you'll get a charms-friendly wand like mine or one that favors transfiguration like his. How am I going to explain that thing? Or the fact that his son temporarily turned into his daughter, and I still don't know what to make of that. Or do about it."

Harry held his wand up and grinned, leaning on his past experience handling what he now assumed was Thor's wand as he willed it to emit a tiny bolt of electricity from the tip. "Well, for the first part of that… simple. You tell him it's a charms wand and if he won't give you the galleon, I'll zap him in the arse till he does. We can split the take nine-eight. As for the girl-me part? Repress it. I know I am."

After mulling over that suggestion for a bit, Lily shrugged. "Good a plan as any, I guess. But you'd better believe I'm going to run a bunch of tests on that thing before September 1st. And if you turn into a girl again, I want to know right away. The last thing we need is you getting stuck like that. Not that I'd mind a third daughter, but I'm guessing you'd object to it being you."

Rolling his eyes, Harry followed his mother into the store. Rather predictably, Lily made a beeline straight for the charms section while he chose to make a slow circuit of the store, opening random books as he went. With his newfound bookworm reputation, Harry figured that if he got an advanced book or two, he could get away with using at least some of the spells he knew by the end of first year or maybe partway into second at the latest. And who knew? This world might turn out to have a book or three that didn't exist in his original world, meaning genuine new things for him to learn.

Harry was glad that his parents provided him with a galleon a week in allowance, giving him more than enough money to buy a pair of books on his own before his mother made it up to the counter. The rest of his selections became a pile next to hers on the counter and as the clerk rang up their purchases, Harry covertly used wandless magic to shrink the two he'd already purchased before sliding them into his pocket. The two-dozen new books were bagged and shrunk by the clerk and then, after a quick stop to pick up parchment and quills, the pair returned to the Leaky Cauldron so they could floo back home, lunch forgotten thanks to the delay at Ollivander's.

Upon their return through the floo, his mother abruptly murmured a destination he didn't hear and disappeared back into the emerald flames. Shrugging, Harry made his way up the stairs to his room, where he got to work restoring his various purchases to their full size so he could sort through his new belongings. He quickly came to the conclusion that he needed somewhere to stash them if he wanted use of his bed between now and September 1st, and there was nowhere suitable in his room.

That had in turn inspired a trek up to the attic in search of a trunk he could 'liberate'. Thanks to the Four-Point Spell, Harry had no problem tracking down two separate trunks with his mother's name of them, one of which also responded to his request to be pointed at 'Lily Evans' schoolbooks'. After a moment's indecision - the trunk without the books was bigger and sturdier looking - he opened both and used a quick spell to swap the contents. Lifting the book-filled trunk with one idle flick of his wand, he floated it back downstairs and into his room, unloading the unneeded books onto the shelves he'd gotten his mother to add to his room. Now with plenty of room for his newly purchased belongings, Harry continued to flick his new wand to and fro, opting to pack everything he didn't think he'd need between now and the thirty-first into the trunk.

Well, that was only part of the reason he was packing early, if he was honest with himself. The other reason was that he really needed to get back into the habit of using a wand to focus his magic instead of doing it all wandlessly. Although getting used to his new wand soon proved to be a trial in and of itself; compared to both his old holly and phoenix feather wand and the wand that evidently had belonged to Thor before coming into his possession, Thrúd's wand was like moving up from a Cleansweep to a Firebolt. For the first time in years, Harry found himself having to actively work to keep from overpowering his spells. Considering he technically wasn't even supposed to be doing magic yet, the last thing he needed was to make something spontaneously combust, explode, or go flying through a wall.

Each of his black robes was folded neatly and packed into the trunk, along with his hat, tie, and a few other odds and ends that hadn't needed to be tailored. The box full of ingredients from the apothecary went inside his cauldron, as did his scales and vials, just to minimize the space they would consume. Casting a critical eye around his room, he flicked his wand and began summoning some of the books he'd want to bring so he could keep reading them without relying on the library at school to have copies. The rest could go in the night before if he hadn't read them by that point.

"Harry James Potter!" A particularly thick text on the history of the Potter family slammed into the side of his head as his mother's voice broke his concentration, making him stagger as it dropped to the floor. Looking over at the doorway, Harry found his mother standing with her hands on her hips, reminding him a great deal of Molly Weasley. "With who your father is, I would think you'd be familiar with the phrase 'Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery'. Do you want to get a warning before you even go to school?"

Well at least she'd caught him using his new wand, rather than doing it all wandlessly. That'd be a bloody nightmare to explain. As it was, he was damned lucky she was too being angry to realize he hadn't been using incantations… while working at a fourth year level. "Mum? Have you ever asked Dad how the Ministry monitors children? Or look into it while you were in school to see if you could get around it?" Lily shook her head slowly and Harry gave a grim smile; he'd been pissed as all hell at the example of institutional discrimination when he'd found out. "I saw it when I was paging through _Ten Things You Don't Know About Your Ministry_, which is why I had you buy a copy. The Ministry has no way to track the use of any one wand, so they point a sensor at the home of each muggleborn who sends an acceptance letter to Hogwarts. They can't do that for houses with even one magical parent, because then if you used a spell, I'd get a letter. So…"

Lily's eyes went wide before narrowing in anger. "So purebloods and half-bloods get to practice magic all they like, while muggleborn students are forced to only do theoretical work every summer?" Harry nodded. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! I'm going to go write a letter to the _Daily Prophet_ and tell the whole world about this injustice!"

With that, she whirled and stomped off down the stairs to points unknown, muttering things under her breath that children were definitely not supposed to learn from their parents. Operation: Distract Mother From Advanced Silent Magic was a success. Harry grinned and made a flicking motion with his wand to close the door. Looking down at it, Harry raised an eyebrow as he realized that his new wand felt so much like an extension of himself, he didn't really feel an urger to use wandless magic anymore. What made it so different from Thor's wand, he wondered, or his original? Dumbledore had always used a different, secondary wand when they dueled… had he feared losing a feeling like this? Was this what was wielding the Elder Wand was like? Was it even better?

Soon enough, Harry had his new trunk sorted and packed. The golden flower and 'Lily' in cursive script had been removed; just because he loved his mother didn't mean he wanted to be known as a mama's boy at school. Instead, the lid of the trunk now bore his own name bookended by a war hammer and an axe. He liked it; while the tastefully minimal amount of gold said 'wealthy but not a berk about it', the weapons just screamed 'badass'. Out of packing related work to do, Harry decided to start jotting down a list of names for his evening project, only to be cut off two-thirds of the way through as he heard footsteps ascending the stairs to his floor once more. Closing his journal, he lifted one of his bed's pillows and slid it beneath before summoning a spare book to him so he'd look busy when she arrived. "Alright, done." Looking up from his supposed reading material, Harry watched his mother wave a roll of parchment at him before using it to gesture back over one shoulder. "Want to come help me cook dinner after I send this off?"

Was it dinnertime already? Huh. Well, it had been after lunch when they returned to the house because of the mess at Ollivander's and he'd been up here working for a while. Time flew when one was working hard, evidently. Closing his book, Harry slid off his bed and stretched before grinning. "I suppose. But only if I can use my wand. And I bet you the other nine sickles from that galleon that Dad won't notice until I'm hovering the food onto the table."

After pondering that for a moment, his mother grinned. Maybe she was feeling rebellious because she disagreed with the Ministry's policies about underage magic now that she knew about them… or maybe she just wanted him to do more work. Harry wasn't sure. "Deal. And you're on."

Following behind his mother as they left his room behind and descended the stairs to the first floor and then onward to the ground floor, Harry took a quick mental inventory of what proteins were still in the fridge for consumption. There wasn't much, at least not that he could remember. Tomorrow was market day, after all. "Any idea what we're doing for dinner? Grab all the leftovers, throw them in a skillet, and serve up what comes out?"

"No, garbage mayo and garbage pot pie are more Dora's thing than mine." Lily entered the kitchen and crouched down, opening one of the cabinets beneath the island. Rooting around inside, she let out a noise of triumph before reaching up and placing a blue and yellow can on the counter. "You know, James is supposed to be home for once. What do you think we can do with these cans of Spam you picked up last time you went to market? And if you think I don't know where you must have gone to get muggle mystery-meat-in-a-can, you're wrong, young man."

Harry held his hands up in surrender and offered up his best attempt at an angelic expression. "In my defense, if they made wizard mystery-meat-in-a-can, I wouldn't have to leave the area I'm not supposed to leave to get mystery-meat-in-a-can."

"Funny."

"I thought so."

In the end, the Spam became Spam in the Hole, James complained vocally about 'unnatural muggle meat', and Harry ended up winning a galleon that night.

Upon returning to his room that night, Harry retrieved his journal and got back to work on the project his mother's request for cooking assistance had disrupted. Namely, a list of all the students in his year so that when he returned to Hogwarts on September 1st, he would know who to make an effort to befriend and who to pass over. After all, he did have the advantage of knowing who these eleven-year-olds - or at least one version of them - would grow into as adults? Why not use that information to make slightly more informed decisions than he had the first time around, like he had with Su? Granted some of his information would inevitably be off or flat-out wrong; Neville was a perfect example of the former, as was Parvati, while Su was a case of the former. But even just having hints to work from would allow him to sink his claws into the real keepers of his year at Hogwarts, while avoiding the ones he was better off not associating with.

With the basic list established, Harry began to sort through the students and cross out those he definitely didn't want to deal with. Gryffindor had five boys in it - four if he didn't count himself - and none of them looked promising. Seamus was just another one of the wizarding world's blind sheep and since he had no idea how they'd bonded the first time, Harry didn't know how to keep Dean from being pulled into that black hole a second time. Neville was out of the equation for obvious reasons and even if through some strange twist of fate Ron wasn't a jealous, irrational, and dim-witted little boy in this dimension? He wasn't sure he could tolerate Ron's presence for any extended period of time without pummeling him for things that this Ron had yet to do and might never do.

Hmm. Maybe Su was on to something with her idea that the two of them should be sorted into Ravenclaw?

The girls of Gryffindor were likewise uninspiring to him: Parvati, Lavender, Hermione, Jen, and Kellah. Hermione was unappealing to him for the same reason as Ron. Parvati and Lavender were… intellectually mediocre, flighty, and considering he was planning to avoid Divination this time around? Why would he want to invite one of the school's two miniature Trelawneys into his life? Not to mention that this dimension's Parvati seemed like a real bitch. Kellah wasn't half-bad, but shared the same problem as Dean, orbiting Seamus opposite her fellow dark-skinned Gryffindor. And Jen… she was a nice enough girl, if painfully shy, but while Hermione sought to bring her muggle worldview into wizarding society and impress it upon uninterested people, Jen had made it clear from her first year that she felt deeply uncomfortable in the wizarding world and planned to live among the muggles after graduating Hogwarts. Why spend seven years getting close to someone who was planning to bolt as soon as she could?

Ending up in Ravenclaw would be a bit of a crapshoot for him: there were two wizards from the house who had served the light side well during the war, but there were also two wizards he knew nothing about and one he wanted nothing to do with. And with his luck, if he got sorted to Ravenclaw then it would be one of the former who got bumped from the dorm to make room for him. The girls, on the other hand, included one he was already befriending, three future Dumbledore's Army members, and one enigma. So yeah, Ravenclaw was looking like a pretty good idea from where he was sitting.

When it came to Hufflepuff, the odds were slightly better than in Ravenclaw: he genuinely liked three of the boys in his year, didn't know one, and outright disliked the fifth. And so while there was a chance that he might displace one of the three decent boys - or the unknown one - accidentally, there was also a chance he'd give Zacharias Smith the boot and he wouldn't mind that at all. Not to mention that all five of the Hufflepuff girls from his year had been members of the DA who possessed varying levels of power and skill.

Slytherin… actually, there was a slightly smaller chance of him killing one of his dormmates if he ended up in the house of snakes, albeit with a wider range of targets for him to pick from. He couldn't name a Slytherin boy he didn't despise and the prospect of spending seven years in a dorm with Draco Malfoy was loathsome. The girls… Bulstrode and Parkinson were right up there on his 'kill if you think you can get away with it' list, Davis and Teague were dark but neutral, and Daphne Greengrass… Harry winced as he thought back to how they'd first met. While he had no objections to the idea of befriending the fiery Woodbridgian pureblood again, he hoped that if it came to pass that it would be under better circumstances than it had been in his original universe.

There was also the matter of one Tara Malfoy. While he wasn't sure she was in his year - while she did look his age, she could have been a slightly older girl who didn't look her age or a younger girl who looked more mature than she was - he was going to assume she was until he learned otherwise and… where would she go? How would they get along if he was sorted into the same house? What would her brother think or do if they began associating? Would this world's Draco even care about him, seeing as how he wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived here? The original Harry's journal had been rather sparing when it came to details about the girl; he'd evidently avoided her since she generally only appeared when Cassie was already present and he'd done his best to avoid the half-veela.

Looking over some of the names left on his list, Harry furrowed his brow as a plan began to form. What if he convinced his mother to have Narcissa over for an afternoon and he'd host a tea party for Tara and any friends she wanted to invite over? With him doing the work, she couldn't really complain and it would give her a free afternoon with her friend while he hopefully made a new one. Or more, if he was lucky. After scratching that idea down on a spare piece of parchment, Harry went back to plotting his future. Something abruptly occurred to him: considering the Sorting Hat had narrowed it to Gryffindor and Slytherin the first time, was there any reason to believe it wouldn't do so again? Therefore, was it worth considering what he might do if placed in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff? And if that was the case… well, he knew exactly where he'd be going because there was no way he was going to be a Slytherin. Perhaps, then, he ought to focus more on potential future friends and networking than what color he wanted his robes trimmed with and who would be in his dorm?

Tapping the end of his quill against the side of the ink pot, Harry considered one of the names he'd previously crossed out. Despite his overwhelming desire to jettison her before she could become a problem that bit him on the ass, Hermione had too much potential to ignore, especially if he could sand off some of her rough edges. Hmm. Maybe he could talk to Hermione on the train and convince her to pursue placement in Ravenclaw with Su? She would definitely have an easier time of things there, where studying and extracurricular spell work were the norm rather than the exception, and would enjoy the intellectual stimulation of housemates who preferred reading to partying. Perhaps that would be enough to keep her from bowing to peer pressure this time around or - if she couldn't manage that - she would at least bow to the pressure of peers with far less obnoxious habits. Not to mention… if she never had Ron's presence forced on her due to their respective friendships with him, was there even a chance of her developing certain undesirable traits? Writing the words 'must have' and underlining them, he then copied Hermione's name down underneath before moving down to the Ravenclaw section of his list.

In addition to being an environment more conducive to learning, the house of eagles also held a number of potential friends and allies that just weren't present in Gryffindor. Terry Boot had been a great help in the war against Voldemort, as had Anthony Goldstein. Mandy Brocklehurst and Lisa Turpin had both been members of the DA of moderate but not particularly noteworthy power, but Padma Patil had been both decently powerful and extremely bright. The Indian witch would make a good companion for Hermione if the group broke into pairs, Harry mused; they were roughly equivalent in both intelligence and spell power, and would be great sparring partners for each other both on the dueling strip and in the library. He didn't necessarily need both of them in his inner circle, given he was already planning to have one Ravenclaw and another witch who was as good as, but there was no such thing as too much brainpower in his book. Harry added a 'maybe' column and put Padma there before moving on.

Su… Su had been a genuine joy to spend time with in his old world and this world's version of her seemed even warmer and friendlier, at least to those she found worthy of her time. Suddenly, he paused. He'd promised he'd write her a letter and send it over with Silver Star, hadn't he? Harry jotted down a reminder for himself on his scrap parchment before writing Su's name beneath Hermione's in the 'must have' column and moving on.

The boys of Helga's house were a veritable minefield, Harry realized as he stared at the list: Smith was a firm 'no' but out of the remaining boys, two were big enough unknowns that he had no clue how to go about befriending them, one was safe enough, and Justin Finch-Fletchley… was a liability.

While he obviously didn't have anything against them, Justin was a 'mudblood' and he already planned to have one of those in Hermione. Harry really didn't need another close friend he'd be stuck defending because people would discriminate against him based upon his parentage. And he really didn't want to cull Hermione to make room for someone who - while nice enough - was someone he didn't really know that well. That didn't mean he couldn't try and be friends with Justin, though, just that he wasn't going to try and share a dorm with him or turn him into the new - and improved - Ron.

The next two names on his list came as a package deal as best Harry could tell but since both Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones were witches worth befriending in his book, it was hardly a problem. Hannah Abbott had been part of the DA and gone on to date Neville; they'd been engaged when they died in the final battle. He wouldn't mind having her at his back, especially given the vicious curses he'd seen her use on people who insulted Neville. Susan Bones had also been a bright young woman, soaking up his DA lessons like a sponge. What else would one expect from the niece of Amelia Bones, though? Like Su, both had grown into gorgeous young women. Which, while a lesser consideration compared to their personality, intelligence, and talents… was still something he took into consideration. If all other things were equal, why have a Pansy Parkinson when you could have a Daphne Greengrass?

Megan Jones, Sally-Anne Perks, and Siobhán Williams were all cute, decent students, and members of the DA too. Siobhán's accent had been thick enough to grate on him a bit when he tried to work with her in the DA, but maybe if he spent more time with her here, he'd get used to it? Any one of them could provide him with a decent friend and an ally in Hufflepuff. Assuming, of course, that Hannah and Susan didn't pan out. Harry frowned, scratched his nose with the end of his quill, and then wrote 'Pick a Puff' beneath Su's name. Granted he might end up with two if he picked Susan or Hannah, but that wasn't necessarily a problem. The more the merrier, as long as they were genuine, loyal, and useful.

The few remaining names on the list all came from Slytherin and if his tea party idea fell through or they weren't on the invitation list, Harry had no idea how he'd approach any of them. Tracey Davis wasn't entirely unpleasant for a Slytherin but his main contact with her had come through Daphne Greengrass. And even if he ended up in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor, he wasn't quite sure how he'd go about approaching Daphne if he didn't meet her on the train or before September 1st. And Harry really didn't want to wait till his sixth year - or let Voldemort rise to such a level of power - in hopes that he could swoop in and save her from attempted rape, which had been the spark that ignited their friendship the first time around.

And Branwen Teague… he had absolutely no clue what to do there. Like Megan, Sally-Anne, and Siobhán, he'd be swinging in the dark if he attempted to strike up a friendship with her but on the other hand, the challenge might actually be fun. Also, assuming he couldn't deal with Voldemort completely before he managed to create a new body for himself, he would need eyes in the dungeons to keep tabs on the junior Death Eaters. Tracey, Daphne, Branwen, or Tara would be invaluable there. Assuming Tara went there. She was a Malfoy… but she seemed to be closer to her mother than her father and Narcissa seemed tolerable enough in this world.

Actually, Tara would likely end up factoring into his plans as more than just 'eyes', Harry realized. If he was using her to get to her friends, he'd have to get close to her… and could he do that and then get away with jettisoning her by the first day of classes? Not bloody likely, especially if their mothers were close. Which, in a way, solved one of his more difficult problems: even if he couldn't get his party, he'd have Tara and… then again, that assumed she was receptive to his advances. Damn. Being Dumbledore was harder than the headmaster had made it look.

Hmm. So Hermione, Su, maybe a Hufflepuff, and preferably a Slytherin. Likely at least twice the size of his original inner circle with the potential to be significantly larger if he ended up with two Hufflepuffs, Padma joining them, or both Tara and one of her dormmates, but that was fine with him. And then the year after, Luna would arrive along with a whole new crop of students that could be evaluated and potentially incorporated into his plans. And if it turned out that Hermione and Su were the only two he could befriend from his own year, he could always try for multiple new friends from Luna's year or even someone from the year ahead of his just to meet someone new. And of course this didn't include just plain friends and acquaintances, which he hoped to have many of now that Hermione and Ron wouldn't be stifling his social life.

So in order… make nice with Tara, find out who the girl was friends with, ask Lily about the tea party idea, push until Lily agreed to the tea party, and then do his best to turn the tea party into a network-building experience. He'd even offer to do more cooking if that was what it took; he definitely needed to see who Tara's friends were and hopefully befriend either Tara, one or more of her friends, or both.

Muttering softly to himself, Harry scratched the end of his nose with his quill again and then went back to plotting.

"So let me get this straight… all this was your idea?"

"Yes."

"You made the tea and scones all by yourself?"

"Actually they're not scones, they're Cornish splits, but yes."

"But you're a boy."

"Your powers of observation astound me, Pansy." The rest of the girls tittered as Harry softened his joke with a smile; the last thing he needed was for Pansy to get genuinely upset at his joke and either leave or sit there sulking through the rest of tea. "But yes, I made this. My sisters are pants at cooking and I actually wanted to learn, so my mum switched some of our chores because it means less work for her and less wasted food." As the girls stared distrustfully at the food on the table, Harry rolled his eyes and leaned in. "Fine. I'll eat one first and when it doesn't kill me, you'll know they're safe."

Su let out a little snicker at that and reached in to smack at the back of his hand. When he recoiled, she took one of the splits and tore it open before setting the halves on her plate. "I trust you, Harry. I'm sure if you were trying to kill us, it'd be through poisoned tea that you'd already taken the antidote for or something." As she sat there spreading strawberry jam on her split, the rest of the girls stared down at their cups of tea uncertainly. "That was a joke."

Raising her cup to her mouth, Tara took a long sip before setting her cup back down on the table. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she flopped limply against the back of the sofa, making the other girls scream and shoot to their feet. They were halfway down the hallway that connected the sitting room and the kitchen when Tara's soft giggle brought them to an abrupt stop. "It's just tea, girls. Merlin, you lot are jumpier than the aurors that come to my house."

Resisting the urge to laugh at the prank Tara had just played on her friends, Harry watched the girls return to the sitting room and take their seats again. Lily poked her head in and looked around curiously, only to retreat when Harry waved her off and mouthed 'nothing'. Picking up her cup again, Hannah Abbott took a sip of tea before addressing Tara's comment. "Well excuse us if we're a little freaked out. Boys are supposed to be out playing quidditch or planning gross pranks to pull on girls, not baking and hosting tea parties for them."

"That's just what the oppressive patriarchy wants you to think so that you don't question the gender roles you're being forced into and attempt to usurp their control of society." The girls turned to stare at Harry with wide eyes and he snickered. "Now I know what I looked like the first time Mum said that to Cassie. That means that you get told there are 'boy' things and 'girl' things because the old men are afraid of girls growing up and trying to kick them out of their cushy jobs of telling people what to do."

Hannah let out a soft 'oh' of comprehension. "Then why didn't you just say that?"

"Because saying it my mum's way makes me seem smarter?" Hannah giggled as Harry took the knife from Su and split his own pastry, smearing it with jam and clotted cream before offering the knife up to Pansy. The dark-haired future Slytherin eyed it for a moment before taking it and picking a split for herself. Turning his attention to Susan Bones, Harry took a bite from his split and then gestured at the redhead with it. "Look at your aunt, though, Sue. "Err, do you mind if I call you Sue?" She shook her head and Harry looked from her to Su and back before frowning. "…although I probably shouldn't when you and this Su here are in the same room because it'll get confusing fast. Anyways, Susan, your aunt has a job in a mostly male Ministry, in a department where there are only half a dozen other women and one of them is my cousin Dora, who's still in training. If your aunt and Dora can do that, why can't I like making pastries and talking to girls?"

Falling silent as they contemplated that, the rest of the girls served themselves and began to eat their splits. Sitting back, Harry let his eyes roam over the eight girls who'd come over for the afternoon. Su was his sole invitee apart from his coconspirator Tara and seemed happy to see him. He wasn't going to jinx it because there was still a chance he'd blow it between now and then, but between their meeting at Diagon Alley and the handful of letters they'd exchanged since then, it seemed like a nice friendship was forming between them. Tara herself had sent out a handful of invitations to a combination of what passed for her friends and the 'right' girls that she was obligated to invite due to their respective social statuses. Pansy fell into the former category it seemed, which didn't especially surprise Harry; she'd been linked to the House of Malfoy in his reality and so why would that change here? Their parents probably encouraged the friendship, even, because it would serve as an excuse to have Draco and Pansy in close proximity so they could start getting used to each other. Then there were Daphne Greengrass and Tracey 'Not-Greengrass' - an introduction that earned Tara a filthy look from Daphne but no further explanation - whose stiffness around Tara and Pansy made Harry think that they fell into the latter category. There was probably a story behind it, but Harry doubted trying to bring it up would make for an enjoyable tea.

Somewhere in the middle of those two groups sat Susan, Hannah, and Branwen Teague. While they obviously weren't the best of friends, each of three got along with Tara well enough. Especially Branwen, who had brought out a facet of Tara that Harry hadn't been aware of: she was bilingual. Or rather that she was bilingual at a minimum; Harry had learned from the letters they exchanged that Su spoke three languages fluently and so there was always the possibility that Tara spoke three or more languages too. But when the girls broke their silence and began conversing in pairs, it quickly became Su and Pansy in one group, Hannah and Susan in another, Daphne and Tracey a third, and Tara and Branwen ended up engaged in a conversation that smoothly switched back and forth between English and Welsh. Which… actually ran contrary to his hopes for the day, he quickly realized. While he was glad Su was making a new friend - albeit one of questionable familial affiliation - he'd been hoping to get to know some of these girls. As of right now, he was just the weird boy who liked making tea and pastries for them. Time to change that. "So… what subjects are you looking forward to most at Hogwarts? I think I'm probably going to do best at either Charms or DADA because of who my parents are."

"Probably Potions." Tara abruptly frowned and reached up to touch an emerald pendant she was wearing. "Although I'm hoping my godfather grades me fairly. I want to have the highest grades because I'm the best in the class, not because he's friends with my father."

Harry let out a snort at that. "I could be the best and I'd still get flunking grades in Snape's classes." Tara eyed him and Harry mentally winced; was the history between him and Harry's parents not widely known here or had it just been kept from Tara by way of her rather one-sided exposure to the participants in the feud? "My father and his friends didn't exactly get along with Snape, and when it comes to him and my mother… well, that's even more complicated."

Looking between the two, Su snapped her fingers. "Well that's easy to fix, isn't it? You should bribe Tara until she agrees to be your partner in class. Well, assuming you end up in houses that take Potions together. But that way, he can't mark you down without marking her down and if he's really that close to her family, I bet he wouldn't do that because it'd make her father angry."

After a second, Pansy let out a low whistle and brought a hand up to rest on Su's shoulder as she leaned in conspiratorially. "So, just out of curiosity… do you like green and silver?"

"Your son organized, cooked for, and is hosting a tea party for my daughter and her friends. After completely reversing his position on her and going from avoiding her like the plague to befriending her."

"I know."

"That's not normal preteen boy behavior, Lily."

"I know."

"And those comments about Severus, you, your husband, the Marauders…"

"I know, Narcissa! Damn it. I get it. You were right and I was wrong." Sighing, Lily ran a hand through her hand and looked back over her shoulder in the direction of the sitting room. Things had settled down since the scream earlier and now all she could hear was conversation punctuated by loud laughter. "What are we going to do about it, though? James doesn't even know you're visiting, and doesn't pay enough attention to Harry that he'll seem different now."

Narcissa considered that as she lifted the spoon from her bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream, her tongue flicking out to lap up a tendril of melted ice cream and thoroughly distracting Lily from her thoughts about Harry. When she began speaking, though, Lily forced her mind out of the gutter and back onto the topic at hand. "There's no saying we need to bring him into this, you know. The two of us can confront 'Harry' ourselves and deal with things. Stun him, bind him, and interrogate him. Depending on what he says, that's when we'll talk to your husband or our niece."

While it seemed equal parts crude and violent to Lily, it was hard to argue with due to the fact that she couldn't come up with anything better. Her mind went to work quickly, fleshing out the barebones outline Narcissa had offered: she could sneak something into James's food or cast a charm to keep him asleep through it all, and the twins and Dora could sleep through a giant attack. Lucius wouldn't be an issue; he was out of the country at the moment, which was why Narcissa had the freedom to drop by Potter Manor for most of an afternoon. Letting out a deep sigh, Lily nodded. As much as she didn't want to, it had to be done. "Alright. Come back tomorrow morning at half four. Harry goes for a run every morning at five; we can lay in wait for him in the kitchen and nab him on his way through." Narcissa nodded and Lily shoveled a spoonful of strawberry cheesecake ice cream into her mouth, then a second, before giving voice to the concern nagging at the back of her mind. "And if we're wrong and it really is Harry? Not that it looks very likely, mind you, but I'm just saying… what if? Because we should probably have a contingency plan ready just in case or he's going to tell James and things are going to get really awkward really fast."

"…I'm not too bad at obliviation?"

Clad in sweatpants, a t-shirt, and his well-worn trainers, Harry slowly crept down the stairs, being careful to avoid the two that squeaked when stepped on. Reaching the ground floor, he turned and made his way towards the kitchen, intent on exiting the house through the back door for his morning run only to be brought up short by a soft moan. It wasn't until he heard it again that his brain processed the noise and where he'd heard it before, and he went Gryffindor red.

His parents were shagging. In the kitchen. Eww!

Turning away to head for the front door, Harry was brought up short a second later as he heard another distinctly feminine moan… from someone other than the source of the first two. "Mmm, Lily…" Jaw dropping, Harry turned back to the kitchen door and stared at it in disbelief. His mother and… or was his father and his mother and… what the bloody hell?

Harry took a step towards the kitchen before freezing. Did he really want to… after all, at least one if not both of his parents were… finally, morbid curiosity won out and he approached the door. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it open and then paused. His mother was standing in front of the kitchen island, leaning over a figure who had their long, pale legs wrapped around Lily's waist. Both were still dressed, but from the heated kisses they were exchanging and the way their hands were roaming, Harry wasn't sure if that was going to be the case for much longer. While he'd never seen anything quite as disturbing as his own mother in the middle of a romantic encounter, he'd seen some pretty damn disturbing things during his patrols as Head Boy and so he was able to keep his head and focus on the important things. Namely how to best embarrass his mother and her mistress. Smirking, he thought back to a particularly hated but always hilarious woman and her distinctive way of announcing her presence. "Hem hem."

"Harry!" Straightening up, Lily turned around and smoothed her shirt down, lips swollen and hair mussed from the activities he'd interrupted. "This isn't what it looks like."

Leaning to one side, Harry caught a glimpse of an all too familiar black-haired woman before his mother slid a step to the right, blocking his view. "So you're not cheating on Dad with a woman and shagging her on the kitchen counter at five in the morning?"

Lily looked a bit embarrassed at that, glancing back over her shoulder at her paramour. Narcissa propped herself up on her elbows before straightening up, arms wrapping around Lily's waist from behind as her chin came to rest on the redhead's shoulder. "Actually, to be fair, you interrupted us before we could actually get to the shagging part."

"That makes it so much better." 


	5. Chapter 5

5\. Kisses, Kicking Around, & King's Cross

"Actually, to be fair, you interrupted us before we could actually get to the shagging part."

"That makes it so much better."

"Cissy!"

"What? It's true."

"He doesn't need to hear that sort of thing!"

As his mother and her… friend… argued, Harry tried to figure out when he'd left the Twilight Zone behind for the Twilighter Zone. He'd known his mother was having an affair from that exchange with Sirius earlier this summer but… Narcissa Malfoy? She was right down there with Umbridge and Lockhart on the list of people Harry had suspected. Wow. Huh. Had his mother and Narcissa been a couple at Hogwarts at some point in his original universe? Or was their affair unique to this new world? And how long had this been going on for? After a moment, Harry decided that it really wasn't something he wanted to think about altogether too much. As close as he'd become to this Lily, these versions of James and Lily Potter weren't even his real parents, just reasonable facsimiles thereof, and so their love lives - both together and separate - were really none of his damn business. "Right. Well. I'm just going to go slip right on past you two and go out for my run. And do my best to pretend this never happened and I saw absolutely nothing and my mother is still being faithful to my father and babies are delivered by owls and so no sex is ever had by parents. So… yeah. And if you two crazy kids feel the need to have more fun, can you do it somewhere I'm not going to be preparing our food in an hour or two?"

Still working to smooth her hair back down into something presentable, Lily nodded absently as she stared at him, moving to the side so Narcissa could slide off the island and back onto her feet. "Well, enjoy your run, Harry." The dark-haired woman smiled at him, reaching behind herself and stretching in a way that made her chest strain against the front of her exceedingly low cut dress - and oh Merlin, he wasn't supposed to notice things like that about his mother's mistress - but the moment of distraction was evidently what she'd been looking for. "Oh, and… _stupefy_! _Stupefy_! _Stupefy_!"

Wand slipping into his hand, Harry instantly evaluated his surroundings before picking the best defense: compact, targeted shields he could easily control. After all, the last thing he needed was Narcissa spraying spells all over the house as he dove out of the way or spells ricocheting every which way off of a wide area shield. Instead, he opted to nonverbally generate a small shield over the tip of his wand, using it to deflect one stunner down and to his left, and the next into the floor a foot to his right. As the third bolt of red light raced towards him, Harry shifted his wand into an axe for the second time and used the fat metal head to bat the spell down into the hardwood at his feet. While he was leery of throwing around any real offensive magic in close proximity to his mother, one tactic he'd developed while wielding Thor's wand - using a burst of what Hermione called 'high voltage, low amperage' electricity to disrupt a person's nervous system - was safe enough if she ended up in harm's way. Sure, it would hurt a bit but there'd be no real damage done. Evidently Lily had chosen to rat him out to her paramour, though, and Narcissa was prepared for his wand's unique abilities. Even as the first tendril of electricity raced her way, she was driving a conjured length of iron into the floor in front of her, the electricity wrapping around it and skittering down to slam into the floor, blackening the hardwood. Flicking her wand, Narcissa yanked the rod upward and then sent the pointed end racing towards him.

Evaluating his options in a split second, Harry opted to hit the ground and roll under the projectile, wincing as he heard it slam into the wall with a thud. So much for being nice and gentle, he decided. Coming out of his roll in a crouch, Harry lunged towards Narcissa as he lashed out with the flat side of his axe. Just as the metal impacted her left knee with a sickening crack - and the very first note of what promised to be a horrifically loud scream erupted from her throat - Harry wrapped his magic around the woman and dragged her with him in a side-along apparition.

Landing atop Narcissa on the grass of the quidditch pitch, Harry had only a second or two in which to savor the success of his plan before a burst of what couldn't really be called 'accidental magic' at her age slammed into his side. It felt like being kicked by a hippogriff but, even though it sent him flying halfway across the pitch before slamming into the ground, Harry thankfully didn't hear anything snap nor did he feel the telltale burning pain with each breath that would indicate cracked ribs. Hopping back to his feet, he returned Rensaren to its wand state and returned fire with a few stunners of his own, all of which Narcissa easily blocked from where she knelt on the grass. "Some of the changes - like your newfound talent silent casting - could be explained away by you absorbing some sort of imprint left behind by Thrúd on her wand, but you know things you shouldn't. Not to mention that your vocabulary's too advanced for your age and you're far too mature. Which one of my husband's associates are you, what do you want, and where is the real Harry Potter?"

"I am Harry Potter, you daft bint. Although right now I'm starting to wonder if you and your dear sister Trixie have swapped places because you've clearly gone insane." Free of the confines of the house, Narcissa stepped things up a notch, loosing two Bone-Breakers before reminding Harry that 'ability to walk' and 'ability to relocate' weren't synonymous in the wizarding world, disapparating and reappearing behind him and to his left, firing off something the color of mustard before popping away again. But likewise free of the shackles that came with fighting inside - and near someone he wanted to protect - Harry found himself instinctually slipping into a form of defense that had confounded most of his pureblood opponents, turning to face Narcissa each time she changed position and slowly circling her as he dodged each spell. "No, Trixie has no imagination. All raving, threats, and Unforgivables. You have variety. Strategy, too. Probably makes you better than her."

Narcissa paused at the unexpected praise, shooting him an odd look before shaking her head and firing off a pale blue spell that made the skin of his arm tingle strangely as it raced past. "You didn't think Lucius married me just for my pretty face, did you?"

Chuckling, Harry let his gaze dip south for a moment before returning to her face. "Actually, yes. Well, that and the chest. If I'd known what you were hiding under those robes of yours at the time, I might have actually let you seduce me when you tried." Narcissa just stood there, staring at him in stunned disbelief, and Harry shrugged self-consciously. "What? I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a tit man. And yours are bloody huge." Scowling, the dark-haired woman hurled yet another spell at him and Harry parried it before returning fire with a few of the hexes they'd learned in sixth year DADA; low level fare that was mostly meant to irritate her and keep her on her toes. "Ah, so you're one of those women who has problems accepting compliments. Got it. I'll just stick to silent appreciation, then."

"Much obliged." The next two spells sent her way forced Narcissa to both conjure a shield and step back under the force of the impacts. "No offense, but having my lover's eleven-year-old son saying that sort of stuff to me is more than a little disgusting. The only thing worse would be if Tara was doing it." Rolling his eyes, Harry decided to take a page from her own book and fired a Bone-Breaking Curse at her legs; surprisingly enough, Narcissa opted to flop over to once side to avoid it rather than shifting to the different shield required to block it. Interesting. Had she been working out with his mum, then? "I don't suppose you'd be willing to change back into your real form anytime soon?"

Harry shook his head. "Sorry, but I'm a little attached to this body. Seeing as how it's mine and all. Hope you don't mind. And I'll have you know that I may be eleven on the outside, but I'm very mature for my age." Letting out a chuckle as she forced herself upright again, Narcissa fired a gaudy, bright pink spell that Harry easily dodged before abruptly stopping and looking back at where it'd hit. "Okay, I have to know, what the bloody fuck was that?"

Raising her wand, Narcissa blew over the tip, a thin curl of bright pink luminescent smoke swirling upward as she shot him a very self-satisfied smile. "That, my dear, is what you can do when you get an O on your Ancient Runes NEWT. It's an Organ Liquefying Curse. It does what the name suggests. I never made a counter for it and considering it kills in seconds, I doubt that even having one would be worth much."

"If that was a project for class, your teacher was certainly a lot more interesting than Hermione's. If you live through this, remind me to have you teach it to me. Sounds useful. Although as long as we're sharing… let's see what you think of this." Harry's wand became an axe again and her unleashed another blast of electricity, apparating away as Narcissa repeated the defense that had worked for her inside the house, landing behind the woman and firing off a second jolt. The blue tendrils of electricity slammed into Narcissa's back, making her scream and collapse to the grass. Harry watched with savage glee as the electricity continued to crawl over her body, making her body jerk wildly as she flopped around on the pitch like a fish out of water. After holding her under for a few more seconds, Harry broke the spell and moved in to stand over the prone woman, using one foot to roll her onto her back before grinning down at her. "You see, Cissy, the trick isn't having the deadliest spells. It's hitting with the spells you do cast."

It took her a few slow, deep, wheezing breaths to recover and then Narcissa spat up at him. "Fuck… you…"

Harry wiped at his cheek to remove the spittle before waggling a finger at her. "I thought you said I was too young for that, Cissy?" She let out a low growl and tried to roll away, only to end up on her back again when Harry's trainer came down hard on her chest. "Another thing you should know? I don't mind stunners. I don't mind bone breakers. I'll even tolerate some of the more amusing dark arts spells. But when we start getting into instant death? I start getting angry. And you know what Voldemort and his Death Eaters found out really fast? You won't like me when I'm angry."

As he stood over his opponent, Harry tried to figure out what to do next. He'd been willing to settle for some humiliation and a clear magical victory over the older woman, and then she'd tried to liquefy his organs. How did one respond to that? Then his eyes dropped to where her hand still grasped at her wand, waiting for him to slip up so she could restart the fight. If he disarmed her, there was no saying things wouldn't restart as soon as she regained her wand or found a new one. But if he literally disarmed her… was it too extreme? Was there such a thing as too extreme when someone was trying to liquify your organs?

"_Expelliarmus_!"

Hit at point blank range, Harry found himself cursing his lapse in situational awareness as he was blown off his feet, Rensaren slipping from his grasp and reverting to its wand form as he went flying away from Narcissa. Hopping back to his feet, Harry prepared to go back on the offensive only to freeze as he found his mother standing there with his wand in one hand and hers in the other, the tip of the latter glowing an angry blood red. Et tu, Brute? He'd thought that Narcissa had snapped for some bizarre reason and that he was protecting his mother from her… but evidently not. The two of them were conspiring against him. But why? To what end? "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you now."

Harry raised his hands in surrender and took a few steps backwards so Lily could approach Narcissa while still keeping the same distance between them. "Well, there's the fact that the Ministry tends to frown on filicide and I doubt visiting Azkaban is on your bucket list?" Making a pulling motion, Harry cast a wandless Disarming Charm on his mother, aiming specifically for her right hand so that if he didn't get both wands, at least he'd get his back. The last thing he needed was to end up having to duel his own mother at a later date just to earn the full loyalty of his own wand back. Thankfully, while Lily managed to keep a firm grip on her own wand, she lost control of his and the slim oak rod flew through the air towards him. His fingers closed around it and he let out a sigh of relief as he sent a tendril of magic through it, feeling no resistance as a small pulse of white light erupted from the tip. He debated holstering it for a moment before deciding to keep it out and ready. He didn't want to leave himself defenseless if Narcissa and Lily decided they wanted round two, although he was really hoping to solve this with words. While Narcissa had been nice enough to him here, his previous dealings with her in his original world had made it easy enough to summon the proper mindset for fighting. He doubted he'd be so lucky with his mother, meaning that despite his superior skill and power, things would likely end badly for him. "You know, Mum, considering she attacked me? I'm pretty sure you're defending the wrong person here. You know, one of us being your son and the other not?"

"Right. My son knows wordless and wandless magic and can apparate. I'm pretty sure I'm defending exactly the person I should be here." Moving to stand in front of Narcissa, Lily turned sideways to present a slimmer target and trained her glowing wand tip on his chest. Going for center mass, a tactic he didn't often see among magicals outside of those he trained himself. Smart woman. "Now who are you, what do you want, and where's my real son? And if you've harmed a single hair on his head, the spells Narcissa was flinging your way are going to seem like Tickling Charms compared to what I use on you."

Harry merely raised an eyebrow at that threat. "Just so you know, you're going to feel really bad when the truth comes out about this whole mess and you realize that you've been plotting with Cissy there to kill your own son." Idly, Harry wondered what precisely he'd done to give himself away. Was it any one action? Or had he tried to change too many things too quickly? Obviously his apparition and duel with Narcissa had proven their suspicions right, at least in their own minds, but what had inspired them to come up with this plan in the first place? As Lily continued to stare at him intently, wand raised and ready, Harry let out a deep sigh. "Right then. Can we go back to the house and discuss this like adults or should I knock you around and then drag you both back there? Because while I can do it, I'd really rather not duel my own mother. There aren't many lines I won't cross, but hurting family members is one of them." Lily opened her mouth and Harry waved his hand. "Just because you're sleeping with her doesn't make her family. Get a divorce or annulment or whatnot, marry her, and then maybe I'll feel bad about knocking her around. Although when she's trying to kill me, I tend to lose sympathy fast."

Allowing Lily to help her to feet and leaning heavily on the slimmer woman, Narcissa slid one hand down her lover's arm and claimed the redhead's wand. Harry raised an eyebrow at the action, watching as Narcissa murmured softly to herself and jabbed Lily's wand in the direction of her own repeatedly, causing ghostly shapes to emerge from the tip. _Priori incantato_, then, but to what end? The sequence ended with three identical spells in rapid succession and Narcissa looked up at Harry. "In my defense, I did try to stun you first."

Ah. Yes. Except for the fact that… "And then you tried to kill me."

"Well yes. You did try to electrocute me and then shattered my knee. Although… I suppose if you have a very good reason for abducting Harry Potter and taking his place, I suppose me trying to kill a kidnapper and potential assassin might seem unreasonable. Mister… who exactly are you? And how are you staying in Harry Potter's form?" Reaching up, Narcissa tapped her wand against the side of the slim silver wireframe glasses she was wearing. Huh. Those were new, at least as far as he was concerned. Not that he'd ever really paid a great deal of attention to this Narcissa when she visited the house, but he definitely hadn't seen the Narcissa of his world wearing them out in public… or when he'd visited Malfoy Manor that one time to cause a bit of mayhem. "It's not polyjuice or a glamour as best I can tell; I can see magic thanks to these and I would know if you were using either."

Harry's eyes narrowed as he contemplated the possibilities that such glasses would afford him. How come nobody had ever told him there were glasses that could see magic, see through glamours, and even see through or at least detect polyjuice? Had it never occurred to anyone that they might come in handy during his fight against Voldemort? Or were they an application of magic unique to this universe? If that was the case, he definitely need to find out who her optometrist was and figure out how to sneak in for a visit. At the moment, though, he had a bigger problem to deal with. Namely trying to calm the two angry women who thought he was a Death Eater or Death Eater sympathizer who had kidnapped Harry Potter. "If I take a magical oath will you two finally stop threatening me and listen to what I have to say?" Lily and Narcissa exchanged looks before turning back to him and nodding. "Right then. I, Harry James Potter, do hereby swear on my life and magic that I am in fact the son of James Potter and Lily Potter née Evans and that I do not serve, nor have I at any time served, Voldemort. So mote it be." There was a bright flash of light and Harry waited a few seconds before reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "Well, I'm not dead yet. I think I'll go for a walk."

Gesturing with her empty hand, Lily paused and stared at it in confusion for a moment before retrieving her wand from Narcissa's possession, trying again and successfully pointing it in Harry's direction this time. "Not so fast. I want to see you cast a spell, too. Magic is a strange and fickle thing, you know. You could be telling a half-truth and so it only decided to punish you halfway."

"We did cover the part where I don't want to duel my own mother, right?"

"In which case you might want to point your wand somewhere other than at me when you cast the spell?"

"Touché." Turning, Harry began to pace back and forth in front of them, wand tapping gently against his hip as he thought. "I could do something simple like _lumos_ but that's just so… boring. I'm in the mood to show off a bit. A lot of my arsenal is lightning-based, though, and if I cast one of those I'll probably just end up arguing with you over whether or not it's a remnant of magic still clinging to Rensaren. Hmm… oh! I know!" Despite the last few months of the war and the events that had followed, Harry still had plenty of happy memories available to him and - contrary to Lily's beliefs - the necessary level of magical strength required to cast it properly. "_Expecto patronum_!"

He had the power, he had the memories, he had the will… the question running through his mind wasn't whether or not the corporeal patronus would form for him, but rather what it would form as. Harry had seen Tonks's change when she'd married Remus and knew it was affected by life events. The way the arrogant prat that was the James of this world had destroyed his mental image of his father probably counted as such. A few hours ago, he might have guessed that a doe would emerge after hearing from his old universe's Remus that it was the form his mother's patronus took… but he now found that equally as doubtful seeing as how she had planned and participated in this little attack on him. So if it wasn't going to be a stag… and it wasn't going to be a doe… what would it be?

When the patronus burst from the end of his wand, Harry actually had to shift to a two-handed grip as the slim oak rod bucked hard in his hand. Unlike when he'd cast the spell before, where a burst of silvery-white light emerged before resolving into his father's animagus form, the swirling energy just kept coming… and coming… and then finally - fifteen seconds into the casting of the spell - began resolving into a corporeal patronus. And it was neither a stag nor a doe, nor was it an owl or maybe a crumple-horned snorkack to match his deceased fiancé's. Oh no. He'd managed to create… "You have got to be bloody fucking kidding me. A basilisk?"

The trio stared at the basilisk in silence, the great beast slithering back and forth a few times curiously before dissipating. Harry tucked his wand away and the awkward silence continued until Lily finally broke it with a low whistle. "Well, I suppose that proves your magic is still intact. And you're still alive. Oh sweet Merlin, I just helped someone attempt to kill my own son. But… but how?" Pulling away from Narcissa, who let out an indignant squawk before conjuring a slim wooden staff to lean on, it was Lily's turn to pace back and forth in front of Harry, absently twirling her wand with her fingers as she thought aloud. "You're only eleven. Even if you read it all and were some sort of genius, you shouldn't have the magical reserves to cast something like that, much less after a duel with Narcissa."

"Not to mention the comments he made about me during the duel."

"Yes, I'd prefer not to mention those, thank you very much. A possession, maybe?" Lily stopped and stared at Harry for a moment before shaking her head and resuming her pacing. "No, I don't think magic would let him survive the oath. Even if he was Harry on the outside, the person swearing the oath wouldn't be Harry James Potter and so they'd be punished. I think."

Sighing, Harry stepped past Narcissa and wrapped one arm around her waist before reaching out with his free hand to grab Lily by the wrist. Before either woman could protest, much less attempt to free herself, Harry gathered the energy required and pulled a tricky triple apparition, depositing them back in the house's breakfast nook. A louder than usual pop echoed in the room as his mother and Narcissa stumbled away from him, Lily immediately gravitating towards her injured lover's side. "The thing is, Mum, that you're stuck thinking inside this box that's keeping you from coming anywhere close to the truth. You see, you're under the impression that you gave birth to 'the' Harry Potter. That there is only 'the' Harry Potter. The truth is? There are many 'a' Harry Potters. You gave birth to 'a' Harry Potter."

Lily's eyes went wide as the truth finally hit her. "And you're another of them. An older one, I'm guessing. Either that, or your world is one twisted and disturbed place." Narcissa let out a soft groan as she shifted in the redhead's grasp, prompting Lily to give her lover a peck on the cheek before summoning one of the chairs from the breakfast nook, carefully lowering Narcissa into it. "So… what happens now? Where are we supposed to go from here?"

"Are we talking short-term problem solving or something longer term? Because if it's the former…" Harry gestured to Narcissa's leg with his wand. "I imagine Cissy would probably enjoy having two knees that work again." Letting out a soft 'oh', Lily straightened up and then disappeared with the faintest of pops, returning a minute or so later with a familiar bottle. Harry grimaced before flicking his wand and using a spell to pull Narcissa's long hair out of her face, twisting it into a thick braid that fell down her back. At the strange look he received, Harry nodded towards the bottle of Skele-Gro in Lily's hands. "The easiest way to fix you up is to vanish the remains of your knee and regrow it. I've been dosed with that stuff enough to know two things: the taste is bloody wretched, and you sweat like a pig for the first half an hour or so after taking it. I figured you wouldn't want your hair sticking to your face. If you want, though…"

Harry held his wand out, ready to cancel the spell, but Narcissa shook her head. "No. Thank you. I just… didn't expect that sort of courtesy from someone I attacked." Taking the cup of Skele-Gro from Lily, she tossed it back in two long pulls before accepting a shot of firewhiskey to help wash it down. "My word, that tastes even worse than I remember. Eugh."

"I'd offer you more to chase it with, but I remember the last time you got drunk here. You ended up flooing to that apothecary in Stornoway." After one final diagnostic spell, Lily nodded in satisfaction and then waved her wand over Narcissa's knee to immobilize it. With her girlfriend on the mend, she moved to perch on the arm of Narcissa's chair and eyed Harry. "Now what?"

Finally tucking his wand away, Harry eyed the fridge as he began taking a mental inventory of what he knew to be inside. He didn't know how Lily was going to explain Narcissa's presence to the others - or perhaps she had the night before and he'd missed something, considering Tara was asleep upstairs in the guest room next to his - but he did know it meant more people for breakfast and someone who would be eating exceptionally heavily at that. She'd need it to replenish what the Skele-Gro took from her system to affect its repairs. "Well, let's see. I need to make sure that you don't throw me out and keep my secrets. You both need to make sure I don't 'accidentally' let your affair slip to your respective husbands. Unbreakable Vows all around then?"

Narcissa simply nodded in agreement. "I suppose it's a good thing you and Tara are getting along better these days… or would it be that you get along better with Tara than the original Harry did? Either way, it'll make things so much easier for the two of you when you get sorted into Slytherin together." Him? Slytherin? Not bloody li… although there was the matter of his new patronus. Crap. Maybe he would be wearing green and silver come September. Well, at least Su wasn't prejudiced against the house yet and could probably be talked into following him there. Hermione, on the other hand… "I can't argue with your logic, though. I'm up for it if Lily is."

The two turned to look at the mistress of the house, who blushed and looked down at her hands. "I've heard of Unbreakable Vows but I've never had a reason to sit down and read up on exactly what one is."

Harry, unable to stop himself, tossed out a gem Ron had offered in his old universe. "Well, you can't break an Unbreakable Vow…"

Head snapping up, Lily glared at the chuckling Harry. "I'd worked that much out for myself, funnily enough." At that point, Narcissa joined him in laughter and she let out an indignant huff. "I hate you both."

His duties having evolved from mere market pickups to genuine grocery shopping around when his 'cooking lessons' began, Harry had taken advantage of his freedom to begin shifting the contents of the fridge and pantry under his mother's nose. Accordingly, the breakfast that hit the table that morning was similar to the traditional full English breakfast he'd served his family that first morning while showing hints of the local cuisine that his mother seemed content to ignore in her own cooking. While the fried mushrooms, hash browns, and baked beans remained a constant, the black pudding and fried tomatoes were absent and the eggs were fried instead of scrambled. The rashers of streaky bacon were likewise nowhere to be found, having been replaced in the fridge with back bacon from a Falmouth butcher almost as soon as Harry received permission to do the shopping. And the sausages… those were a particular favorite. Made from pork and Cornish blue cheese, they were usually in short supply at the market he visited and if his sisters wanted to turn up their noses at them again? It just meant more for him, Dora, and… well, Stasis Charms that would keep them until the two of them could make a second pass later in the day.

Jasmine and Rose did indeed turn their noses up at his choice of sausage for the day, which made Dora and him share a grin before the auror trainee left for work and the twins wandered off to do… something. James had never even come in for breakfast, which left Harry alone in the breakfast nook with Lily, Narcissa, and Tara. Harry ate with deliberate slowness, planning his words, and so he was caught off guard when Tara decided to open things. "So… I managed to make it through the entire night without you two waking me up. Is something wrong? Are you two breaking up?"

Choking on the mouthful of baked beans he'd just shoveled into his mouth, Harry felt something pound his back a few times and then he spit his breakfast all over the tablecloth. Given the locations of the rest of the room's occupants… the same spell his mother regularly used on Dora, he assumed. Quickly vanishing the mess with his wand, Harry took a long sip of water and then stared at Tara incredulously. "You knew?"

He got a reply in the form of a raised eyebrow and a superior smirk that reminded him far too much of her father and brother. "You didn't?"

"No. Well, at least not until I walked in on them this morning. On the kitchen counter." Harry chuckled as Tara's gaze dropped to the empty plate of food in front of her and a distinctly greenish tinge spread across her features. "Don't worry, I badgered my mum into having yours summon Dobby to come and clean the whole kitchen before I started cooking." It had been decidedly interesting to have Narcissa summon the rather eccentric elf and discover that he was just as strange in this world, where he was assigned to Narcissa and Tara and therefore insulated from the abuse he'd suffered in the other world. Harry had always assumed that Lucius or Draco had done something to the elf to turn him into the rather bizarre little creature he'd met in second year. Obviously not. "Anyways, what do you know about Unbreakable Vows, Tara?"

Tara didn't even miss a beat before replying, making him wonder if she'd been eavesdropping earlier. "Well, you can't break an Unbreakable Vow…"

Letting out a sigh, Lily tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling as she shook her head in disgust. "I should have James contact Lucius and begin negotiating a marriage contract; the two of you deserve each other." Tara let out a giggle at that and the redhead smiled before becoming more serious. "Jokes aside, Tara, do you know what they are?" The young witch nodded. "We need you to swear one to Harry. Then he can tell you - and the rest of us; he's making us wait so he only has to do it once - some very important things and if he wants to tell anyone at school, you can be his bonder." The delay was slightly longer this time, but Tara eventually nodded. "Okay. Harry, Narcissa, you're up."

Harry slowly and deliberately finished off the last piece of sausage on his plate before wiping his hands and rising to his feet. Moving to stand in front of Tara, he held out his arm and waited for her to do likewise, moving to grab her wrist as she assumed a mirror position. Leaning across the table, Narcissa brought the tip of her wand down to rest atop their linked hands. After waiting a few seconds to give Tara one last chance to pull out, Harry cleared his throat. "Do you swear that you will protect any secret shared with you by Harry James Potter regarding his origin or abilities unless explicitly told otherwise?"

"I do."

"Do you swear that you will protect any information regarding Harry James Potter's origin or abilities that you discover for yourself unless explicitly told otherwise?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to eschew trousers, short trousers, and other garments based on trousers and wear only skirts or dresses from this day forth unless asked to do otherwise by Harry James Potter, Lily Potter née Evans, or Narcissa Malfoy née Black?"

"…I do." For the third time, a thick tongue of fire wound around their clasped arms before dissipating. As the two broke apart, Tara shook her head slowly. "Really, Harry? You bound me to wearing what I'd wear anyways?"

With a shrug, Harry wandered back down to take his seat, casting a weak Warming Charm over the remains of his breakfast. A childhood with the Dursleys had firmly ingrained a habit of 'waste not, want not' that he'd never managed to shake. "I was halfway through the second vow when I realized the third one from when I had our mothers take their Vows to me didn't really apply in your case. So I just made something up on the fly. And I'm doing you a favor. It'll protect you from Mum's speeches about rebelling against the 'oppressive patriarchy'. Or at least the clothing related ones." As Lily sputtered indignantly, Harry evaluated what remained on his plate before adding a Stasis Charm, deciding to save it for later in favor of leaving room to 'waste not' the sausages remaining on the platter. Which would come after story time was finished, he decided, adding a Stasis Charm to the sausages' platter as well. They'd been very patient with him, after all. Folding his hands in his lap, Harry adopted a more serious expression. "So… my story starts on October 31st 1991, in a small town named Godric's Hollow… when Peter Pettigrew betrayed my parents and led Voldemort to where they lived…"

The remainder of August was similar to the first two and a half months Harry had spent in his new universe, albeit with a few subtle differences. His father's periods of absence seemed to grow even longer and more frequent, Harry sometimes going two or three days at a time without seeing the man, and Narcissa had taken advantage of his absences to spend more time at Potter Manor. Tara likewise had taken to having more 'sleepovers with the twins'; in actuality, Tara and the twins barely interacted and she either spent her time studying and practicing first year spells or talking with Harry and picking his far more learned brain before retiring to the spare bedroom up on the second floor.

A bright spot most days came around lunchtime with the arrival of an owl: Silver Star, Su's spotted owlet Maau Tau Jing and the Owl-That-Would-Have-Been-Hedwig-If-He'd-Bought-Her-But-Was-Now-Albiona had been put on rotating postal duty ferrying letters between Perranarworthal and Harwich. They were always short missives with little information of significance to them, but his goal was to solidify his blossoming friendship with Su and they did their job there. He now knew about some of the basic cuisine and culture of Shanghai and she knew something about what life was like when you had siblings and lived in a house in what was close to the middle of nowhere. Nothing spectacularly fascinating, but that could wait until they were face-to-face at Hogwarts again.

While there had inevitably been some stiffness following that fateful night and the next morning's revelations, Lily had slowly but surely warmed back up to him after he'd convinced her that he hadn't come to inhabit her son intentionally - something that had required him to take another magical oath - and that he wasn't a threat to the rest of her family. Or Narcissa, as long as she kept her wand to herself. Her acceptance - or more likely repression of her true feelings on the subject, he was willing to admit - was helped along by a rather valid point of his: if not for Harry's displacement of the Harry she'd given birth to, she would still be stuck dealing with a miniature James instead of the 'son' that she'd come to enjoy spending time with as of late. Narcissa, shockingly enough, had come to serve almost as a therapist for him, letting Harry ramble on for hours about his world, his lost love, his frustrations with how certain events or facets of his life had unfolded, and anything else he needed to talk about. Sometime in mid-August, the term 'Mother' had escaped his lips in reference to her and by the end of the month, it had evolved into a genuinely affectionate appellation for his mother's paramour.

So life, while not perfect, was pretty darn good.

The last days of summer, or rather his summer, slipped away far faster than Harry expected and suddenly it was August 31th and he was helping cook one last breakfast at home. After everyone was fed, watered, washed, and dressed, the four Potters - James was busy with work, of course - Narcissa, and Tara piled into the van Lily owned for when they had to venture into the muggle world and drove down to the Perranwell train station, whose sole operating track also ran along the northern boundary of the Potter family property. As they'd waited for the train to arrive, Lily had decided to launch into a lecture about modern British rail service worthy of one of Hermione's long-winded rambles. Just as he'd been getting desperate enough to do something stupid, like apparating all the way to London, their train had arrived. A few minutes later, they were all safely ensconced inside what Harry now knew was a British Rail Class 150 DMU - not that he cared - and heading eastbound along the Maritime Line towards Truro. Surprisingly enough, Harry found the ride interesting; he'd seen the Maritime Line south over the Perran, Ponsanooth, and Collegewood Viaducts to Falmouth when the family had opted to go to a Falcons game the muggle way in mid-August, but venturing northeast to Truro was completely new to him.

Arriving at Truro Station, the family disembarked and crossed from Platform One to Platform Two - an ever so long jaunt of two yards - to board a new train bound for London along the aptly named London to Penzance Line. This, he learned from a new lecture, involved a trip aboard what British Rail called an InterCity 125: a series of normal passenger cars between a pair of Class 43 diesel locomotives, whose top speed of a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour made them the fastest diesel locomotives in the world. That little tidbit had made Harry blink. While he was no magical supremacist and knew the value of muggles and their inventions, having grown up as one, the idea that this massive metal hulk could reach over eighty percent of the top speed of his Firebolt was amazing. Given the Ministry used converted modern automobiles and such, Harry mused, maybe someday it would be possible for someone to convince them to abandon the steam-based Hogwarts Express and switch to one of these trains. The trips to and from Hogwarts would literally be cut in half… leaving students more time with their families on outbound days and returning them sooner on inbound days. It would be good for families. Harry made a mental note to pass the thought on to Sirius for him to suggest at a future Wizengamot session.

Although he still found the idea that Sirius Black was a member of wizarding Britain's legislative body to be downright scary.

On the five hour ride to London, Harry alternated between reading the books he'd deemed safe for public viewing and watching the scenery go by. Thanks to his upbringing - and he used the term loosely - with the Dursleys, his knowledge of geography was limited to primary school textbooks and wall maps. Until the Flight from the Letters and his subsequent trip with Hagrid to London, he'd never left Little Whinging. And so while a number of the cities he saw when glancing up from his book looked rather similar, they were still all new to him and Harry found himself wishing he could stop time each time the train pulled into a station just so he could poke his head out and look around. Maybe he could sign up for too many electives in third year, he mused, get a Time Turner and then abuse it a bit…

When the train merged onto the four track wide main line heading in to London, Harry tucked his book away and watched out the window as they traveled through increasingly urbanized areas. Almost every station seemed to have extra lines that were the source of branches to other parts of England and Wales, and most had a train either arrive or leave as theirs sat waiting to let passengers on and off. Finally, the train pulled into London Paddington and the Potter-Black brigade trooped off onto the platform, thankful for a chance to finally stretch their legs for a bit.

It didn't last long, though; Lily quickly bundled them onto a Piccadilly-bound train on the Bakerloo Line of the Underground and they were off again. Thankfully that took only eleven minutes and they were back above ground… in a very familiar area. Harry almost took the lead, managing to stifle the urge at the last second. After all, he wasn't supposed to know where the muggle side of the Leaky Cauldron was, now was he? The group arrived and spread out over three rooms rented from Tom for the night - the twins and Tara in one, Harry in another, and the adults in the last - and then filled the remainder of the day with sightseeing and dinner before retiring to their rooms.

The next morning, Harry showered, dressed, and joined his family for breakfast downstairs before passing through the floo to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in London. Since it was just him and Tara going off to school they ignored the muggle luggage carts and Harry took his trunk's handle in one hand and Albiona's cage in the other, moving towards the all too familiar train waiting to take him to Hogwarts. After final goodbyes and a few too many pictures, Harry said his final goodbyes to his family before boarding the train, looking up and down the corridor before setting off towards the back in search of an empty compartment. After picking one at random, he hoisted Albiona's cage into the overhead rack and then dug through his trunk, selecting two books to occupy him during the ride before using magic to float his trunk up next to his owl. Opening one book as a bit of cover, Harry settled in to do a bit of people watching. 


	6. Chapter 6

6\. Steam Train to Hogwarts

His brief encounters with Neville, the Patils, and Su had given him a taste of what the Hogwarts Express eventually delivered in spades as it grew closer to eleven o'clock: familiar faces back in too-youthful bodies. His parents had died when he was one, his sisters had never existed, Anastasiya and Cassie had likewise been missing from his original universe, and the only time he'd met a young and healthy Sirius or Remus was back when he was still filling a diaper. Seeing them like this was just as new to him. But seeing his former classmates back in the bodies they'd had in his first year was… highly disturbing, he decided.

Fred and George were the first to pass by his compartment, bookending a slightly younger girl with glasses and black hair. Harry grinned, wondering what the trio could possibly be discussing in low voices, their heads close together. Likely nothing good. A slightly chubby girl with the same red hair as the twins trailed along behind them, and Harry blinked before shrugging. He had spare siblings. Why not the Weasley clan, especially given their already ridiculous rate of breeding? The sighting of two confirmed Weasleys and a potential third had Harry thinking back to another September 1st and brought a few questions he'd always had back to the front of his mind. Why hadn't the Weasleys flooed in like his family had chosen to? And why had Missus Weasley - on her eighth year of sending students to Hogwarts - wandered around King's Cross talking loudly about muggles and quizzing her children about the hidden platform?

Hmmph. He was starting to turn into Mad-Eye, seeing conspiracies everywhere.

Then again, you weren't paranoid if they really were out to get you.

Another thing Harry noticed was how many people were talking about Neville Longbottom, nattering on endlessly about their precious Boy-Who-Lived. Had it been that bad when he was on the train? He didn't remember the whispers being quite as prevalent but then again, he'd shut himself up inside a compartment early in the journey and not emerged until they arrived at Hogwarts. It certainly was annoying. The kid had bounced a Killing Curse off his fat, snobby head. It wasn't like he'd led a great army in battle against a dark wizard or anything.

A girl with long, reddish-brown hair walked past and Harry almost wrote her off until he noticed her attire: the basic, trim-free black robes of an incoming first year. That was an interesting development he'd never taken into consideration. This universe evidently had students in it that he wouldn't be familiar with. Harry thought of the list sitting in his journal. He'd been prepared to take into account a bit of drift between the two universes, like Neville and Parvati, but for some reason he'd never even considered that there might be students missing or new students joining his class.

And who knew what other changes could have been wrought over the last ten years by parents making slightly different choices when it came to raising their children? An odd mental image came to him and he chuckled. Maybe Hermione's parents had encouraged her to play sports instead of obsessing over school, and she and Dean Thomas would spend most nights in the common room arguing over football. Maybe Ron, the backstabbing bastard that he was, would end up in Slytherin. Wouldn't that be perfect? First Weasley in generations not in the house of lions.

Half a mo. Who had that girl with the Weasley twins been? It certainly wasn't Katie, Angelina, Alicia, or… bugger, who was that friend Katie had brought to DA? Leanne. Wasn't her either, or at least he didn't think it was. So who was she? And why was she their partner in crime instead of Lee Jordan?

Shaking his head, Harry slouched down in his seat and put his legs up on the opposite bench, focusing his attention on the book in front of him. What ifs were great but ultimately useless. Until he arrived at school and spent a bit of time with his peers, guessing would accomplish nothing more than wasting his time. Time he could think of better uses for, such as establishing his bookworm façade so people wouldn't question his growing repertoire of spells. And so he put his curiosities out of mind, found the spot where he'd left off, and went back to reading.

An hour or so into the journey, Harry's reading was disturbed as someone wrenched his compartment door open and stomped inside, slamming it shut and throwing themselves down across from him with a huff. After a moment, in which the other person made no move to initiate conversation, Harry marked his spot in his book and closed it, laying it on his lap. Who he found sitting across from him surprised him greatly.

It was Hermione, and yet she wasn't the Hermione he had known back in his first year and had expected to meet again. This Hermione was… well, brawny. Not on the level of Millicent 'half troll and it shows' Bulstrode, but in only a muggle t-shirt and jeans, it was very easy to spot that her level of physical fitness rivaled or perhaps even exceeded his own, and he was no slouch when it came to taking care of his body. Her hair was merely wavy instead of the frizzy mess he was used to, pulled back into a simple ponytail to keep it out of her way. And she was giving him a fierce glare, a look she hadn't perfected until after some of her adventures with him and Ron. "Take a photograph, it bloody well lasts longer. Oh wait, you probably don't know what a photo is. Snobby magical wankers."

Harry's jaw dropped. Hermione swearing? Leaning over, he looked out the window and peered up at the sky. Well, there was no rain of hellfire and brimstone yet. Huh. The other universe's Ron owed him a galleon. Turning back to Hermione, he offered her a smile. "Actually, we do have photographs. Wizard ones even move, like movies that last a few seconds before restarting. But… based on that hello, I'm going to guess that you get along with the purebloods about as well as I do."

"All I did was overhear some of them talking about quidditch and ask if I could come in. I think the game sounds fascinating and it's not like anything I've ever seen in the, err, muggle world. They figured out I was a muggleborn pretty quick and things went downhill." Hermione scowled and looked down, flexing the fingers on her right hand. They seemed a bit scraped and red, which made Harry curious. She realized what he was staring at and raised her hand proudly. "Some dumb sod named Longbottom called me a 'mudblood' to my face. Not sure what it means, but his expression made the intent pretty clear. So I hope you lot know a way to get his teeth back into his mouth. And really, Longbottom? Most English surnames come from your ancestors' occupation. My family used to be farmers; that's where the last name Granger comes from. What the hell kind of bizarre family does he come from?"

He couldn't help it anymore; Harry leaned his head back and laughed loudly. "A magical one. And a really vain one at that. Can't believe you punched the Boy-Who-Lived, though, that's priceless. Wish I'd been there to see that." Hermione gave him a curious look. "Oh, you don't know? Neville's a celebrity here in the magical world. His parents and mine used to be friends until he got famous for basically doing nothing, and his parents developed huge egos to match their son's."

Hermione's jaw dropped and Harry noticed she lacked the oversized front teeth of her other world counterpart. "I punched a celebrity? Huh. Well, he deserved it and I'll punch anyone who says otherwise." Wow, this Hermione was a violent one. Did that mean there really might be a Ron somewhere on the train with his nose buried in a book? "So, you're not a pureblood I take it?"

"Nope. Harry Potter, half-blood extraordinaire at your service. My father is a pureblood and my mother is a muggleborn like you. So yes, I know what electricity, movies, and cars are. And you would be… someone Granger. Do you have a first name, Miss Granger, or shall we just do the Madonna thing and call you 'Granger'?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and offered Harry a two-fingered salute. "Hermione. Hermione Granger. So do you know anything about sports? Quidditch or muggle ones? The other kids don't seem to realize that people play games other than quidditch, especially in the muggle world."

Shaking his head, Harry decided to go with the truth since he did have patchwork knowledge of the muggle world but not enough to convincingly fake an interest in something Hermione liked. The girl could be bloody scary sometimes, and if her focus was on athletics instead of academics in this world, she could probably name every player in the Premier League or some such. "No, I grew up in a town called Perranarworthal in Cornwall. I didn't go to muggle school so I couldn't do any of the local sports. I've watched a few pick-up football games, but the only sport I've really been exposed to is quidditch. You?"

After a moment, Hermione reached down and rolled up one leg of her jeans to show off a large, puckered scar on her shin. "I play field hockey. Goalkeeper. Sometimes, I go without pads because then I can toss my helmet at the coach and move up past half field with my teammates to try and score. Earned myself a compound fracture a few months ago, which actually worked out well because I was supposed to do a presentation at the Hampshire County Science Fair on the same day as one of my games, and the injury cleared up my schedule. When Professor McGonagall came to speak with my parents, I was still in a cast with stitches and the works. She brought Madam Pomfrey over and they fixed me up in minutes. Well, the bone at least; I decided to keep the scar for when I'm older because my father says women dig scars. I have to say, the bigotry is a pisser but it's hard to hate a world that can put you back on the playing field in a day instead of months."

Merlin's left nut, Hermione played field hockey? Harry had seen the Stonewall High boys team practicing during the summer between his fourth and fifth years. It was a rough sport. And… why would she care if women dug scars? Unless… huh. Was this Hermione like his mother in yet another way? Eleven seemed a bit young to care about that sort of thing but on the other hand, Ginny had started crushing on him at a younger age in his home dimension and so had Cassie here. So… whatever made her happy, he supposed. And it guaranteed she wouldn't end up with Ron again, which was a definite plus. He just hoped they had different taste in women, because he didn't relish the idea of competing with someone who had the head start of actually knowing how a woman's mind worked.

Another important thing he had picked up on, though, was that Hermione was still an academically gifted student even though she enjoyed sports. And punching people who wronged her. What an interesting combination. Harry had a feeling that he would never find himself bored if he stuck around her. Mind made up, Harry leaned forward and grinned. "Yeah, magic can be bloody brilliant sometimes. Alright, what did you want to know about quidditch? I'm no Ludo Bagman, but I know my share."

Opening her trunk, Hermione grabbed a book out of the top before closing it and lifting it up onto the luggage rack. Dropping back into her seat, she opened _Quidditch Through the Ages_ and leafed through the pages before turning it so Harry could see. "Well first of all… did I read this right? Have the Chudley Cannons really not had a winning season in over a century?"

Harry shook his head. "Close. They've had winning seasons, as in they've had at least one more win than loss, but they haven't won the League Cup in that long."

Staring at him with wide eyes, Hermione let out a low whistle. "Wow. That's bloody pathetic."

"Pretty much, yeah." A knock on the window disrupted their conversation and Harry raised an eyebrow at the new arrivals: Su had finally shown her face and she'd brought along a pair of familiar faces: Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Not-Greengrass. Motioning for her to open the door, Harry rose to his feet and pulled out the pocket watch Lily had snuck him; his father owned several but only used one, so she didn't reckon he'd miss it. "Huh. It only took you an hour and sixteen minutes to find me, assuming you got on the train just as it pulled away. Did they magically add some cars when I wasn't looking?"

Su rolled her eyes before gesturing to her trunk and owl cage, which Harry magically levitated up to rest next to his own. "Funny. No, I decided to poke around for a bit, see if I could make a few friends not named Harry Potter. Nothing. Did you know there's only one other Chinese girl on the entire train, and I've only seen half a dozen other students who aren't white? It's like the school forgot minorities exist. Actually, it's like they forgot people who aren't white and English exist; didn't hear many Irish or Scottish accents, either." Slipping past Harry, she moved to sit between Hermione and the window before nodding in the direction of the two quiet redheads still standing in the doorway. "I ran into them while I was looking and figured that since you're not exactly the crowd type, you'd probably have room for more in your compartment."

Shaking his head, Harry was about to invite them in when he remembered his current companion. Looking over at Hermione, he raised an eyebrow and nodded in their direction, causing her to shrug. Right then. Well if Hermione didn't mind and he obviously didn't have a problem with them riding in the compartment… "Daphne, Tracey, you've met Su obviously. This is Hermione Granger. Do you need help with your trunks or anything?" The pair looked at each other, looked back at him, and shook their heads perfectly in sync. Each drew their wand and with a muttered Levitation Charm, their trunks lifted into the air and floated over to rest in the luggage rack. That done, they looked around the compartment slowly before meeting each other's eyes again. Some sort of silent communication took place between them, reminding him almost of the Weasley twins, and then Daphne brushed past him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him along behind her as she took the window seat and then pulled him down beside her. As soon as he was settled, Tracey took up the spot on his other side. He offered each a bemused smile. "Well, I lost my window seat but at least I'll get to know the two of you better."

"No, you lost the window seat and I don't have to worry about Tracey bugging me from here to Hogsmeade because she's too polite to try talking across another person." Ignoring Tracey's indignant huff, Daphne leaned forward and offered Hermione her hand. "Daphne Greengrass, heiress presumptive of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass." Reaching out, Hermione shook the girl's hand, looking utterly confused all the while, but when Harry made no move to explain things to her, Daphne eventually took pity on the brunette. "Inheritance positions are a big thing with purebloods. Being heiress presumptive means that unless my mother has a son between now and when my father dies, I stand to inherit. Harry here, on the other hand, would be the heir apparent of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter because he's the oldest son of the only son."

Hermione let out a soft 'oh' before narrowing her eyes at Daphne. "You're not one of those snobby purebloods who would call a muggleborn a 'mudblood', are you? Because I already punched one for doing it and if I'm going to end up having to punch you, Harry should probably have some warning so he knows to move over a bit."

After staring at Hermione for a few seconds, Daphne threw her head back and laughed. "Let me guess, you're the real reason that Longbottom looks like he tried to snog a bludger?" Hermione nodded, making Daphne shake her head in amusement. "He's running around telling people he got punched by an older Slytherin. But no, I'm not into all that blood purity stuff. My father used to be, but a decade of being yelled at by mother and stepmother has beaten it out of him." Harry's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out the implications of what she'd just said before shaking his head; her family situation wasn't his business and if she wanted him to know, she'd tell him. "Anyways, I'm Daphne and on Harry's other side is Tracey Davis. Not an heiress at all."

Tracey just rolled her eyes at that. "Yes, and if our father had met my mother a few weeks sooner, I might have a claim to that inheritance of yours even if I am the illegitimate one. And besides, it's not like you actually inherit anything. Being the 'heiress presumptive' just means you're the one whose husband gets all the money and land someday when Father dies. Which makes you the one who has to get a husband - or get sold off to a husband of Father's choosing - while I can marry whoever I want when the time comes. So no thank you. You can have your heiress-ness."

"…and there go chances of us keeping the related-to-you thing quiet until Big Mouth starts Hogwarts in two years." Daphne groaned, burying her face in her hands for a moment before straightening up. "To make a long story very short, we're half-sisters. Father took advantage of a loophole in wizarding laws to marry Aunt Claudia - Tracey's mother - in the muggle world and my mother in the magical world. Now he splits his time between Aunt Claudia's house in Hampstead and Greengrass Manor in Woodbridge. The houses are both connected to the floo so Tracey, Tori, and I just sorta float back and forth between the two at will." Looking back and forth between the two girls, Harry could almost see it. Well, it had to be true if they were actually coming out and saying it because who would lie about such a thing? But the more he looked, the more things he found that convinced him he might have eventually realized the truth on his own. Their hair and eyes were different colors with a common medium ground: Daphne was a strawberry blonde with teal eyes and Tracey possessed reddish brown hair and olive eyes. Mister Greengrass, Harry theorized, more than likely shared his mother's coloration. Their cheekbones and lips were both similarly shaped and… actually, all their similarities were located above the neck. Daphne was shorter and slimmer than her half-sister, while Tracey not only carried a bit more weight overall but was already visibly developing. "There's more to the story than my father wanting to be stuck supporting two wives and three children spread over two houses in two worlds, but that's not for sharing until I get to know you better. Or until Tracey decides she can't help blabbing family secrets to outsiders again…"

Despite his own curiosity - such as why Tara had avoided using Tracey's surname when she clearly had one - Harry decided to respect Daphne's wishes. The question was, did he let the conversation die for now or try to redirect it into safer territory? He thought about several different potential topics before settling on one that would either result in them talking about something he could participate in or - more than likely - band them together in a synchronized huff about 'boys!' and launch a conversation about how juvenile his sex was. But hey, at least then they'd be talking and becoming friends and he could go back to his book. "So, does anyone else here like quidditch? Hermione and I were talking about how pathetic the Cannons are before the rest of you got here. I root for the Falmouth Falcons, mostly because they play only a few miles south of where I live and so it's easy to go to their games."

Harry knew immediately that he'd made an egregious error when not only Su but Daphne's eyes lit up, prompting a groan from Tracey. Sliding off her black outer robe, Daphne revealed not the Hogwarts uniform that Harry was expecting, but an ankle-length bottle green skirt and matching shirt with a golden talon emblazoned over her heart. "Holyhead Harpies. Father has season tickets for three and so the six of us rotate as to who gets to go. Well, five of us; Tracey never wants to come. What about you, Su?"

"Well, I cheer for the Shanghai Sānzúwū whenever we're visiting home, but I should probably find a new team to root for while I'm here in England." Su thought about that for a moment before shrugging. "It's not like I'm betraying the Sānzúwū, since none of the teams around here compete against them in the Chinese Quidditch Association. Although don't expect me to be in anything other than red and gold in 2004…"

Letting out another groan, Tracey leaned to rest her forehead on Harry's shoulder as Daphne began extolling the virtues of the Harpies. "Oh, this is going to be a fun ride…"

When the train finally rolled in to the station near Hogsmeade, Harry disembarked first before offering each girl a hand as they stepped down to join him on the platform. As his fellow first years gathered around, it just reinforced the feeling of oddness that had set in that morning. Being surrounded by miniature versions of people he'd seen grow into young adults - with a few exceptions - was just bloody odd.

Neville was a prime example. No matter how hard Harry looked, not a single trace of either the shy, plump boy from first year or the confident young man of their seventh remained. This Neville was a chubby, dark-haired Draco Malfoy, except his claim to fame was a scar on his head instead of familial riches and a well-positioned father. Parvati was another; the younger of the Patil twins intermittently tugging at her sister's braid as they walked along. And… his knowledge of the future wasn't going to be nearly as useful as he'd hoped. Even beyond the potential for people who were the same on the outside and different on the inside, the girl with reddish-brown hair was one of a handful of strangers wearing pure black robes. A handful that included the girl he suspected was this world's version of Ron.

Speaking of Draco, it was while standing on the platform that Harry finally received confirmation that he'd be stuck dealing with him in this world too. He'd realized while on the train that while he'd assumed that Draco and Tara were fraternal twins that gravitated towards their same-gendered parent - and planned around said assumption - he'd never thought to ask anyone so he could know for sure. Well, there the prat was in all his blonde-haired, pointy-faced glory. Great. Maybe if he was lucky, Draco and Neville would end up in Slytherin together and spend all their time tormenting each other…

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" Hagrid's booming voice echoed over the platform, freezing most of the first years in their tracks. Rolling his eyes, Harry gestured for his friends to follow him as he headed towards the half-giant; sure Hagrid looked intimidating, but Harry knew the man was a great big teddy bear on the inside. "C'mon, follow me… any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!" Eventually all the students took their lead from Harry, following along like ducklings as Hagrid led them down a path through the woods towards the lake. "Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec, jus' round this bend here." There were gasps and appreciative noises as Hagrid led them out onto a narrow beach that separated the woods from the large lake, gesturing with his umbrella to the row of boats sitting on the shore. "No more'n four to a boat!"

With a chorus of low murmurs, the students began splitting into groups for the boat ride across the lake. The quintet looked at each other before shrugging and heading towards the furthest boat. After all, the five of them combined probably weighed less than Hagrid and he was going across the lake in one of the same boats as them. As soon as they were all loaded, there was a gentle bump and the boats began pulling away from the shore. There wasn't much to see, it being night and all, and so Harry closed his eyes and let the sounds of his boatmates' quiet chatter wash over him. Sometime in the next half an hour or so, he'd be finding out who he'd be spending the next ten months a year for seven years with. But that was then. For now, he could do nothing but wait and relax. And so he did.

As they congregated outside the Great Hall, waiting for Professor McGonagall to lead them inside, Harry shook his head as it sank in… there were a lot of boys in his class alone. And he'd really known two in his entire time at Hogwarts: Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom, the latter entering his life around fifth year. Similarly, apart from the late additions of Luna, Lara, Daphne, and finally Su, his only real female friends had been Hermione and Ginny. Before their post-war transformations, at any rate. Okay, he'd had the Weasley Twins too, but the point stood. He'd been so screwed out of a social life by associating with the two biggest losers in his year, it wasn't even funny.

Harry was pulled from his thoughts as McGonagall appeared, herding the crowd of nervous first years into the Great Hall. When she reached the front of the room, she gestured for the group to stop and peeled off to retrieve the stool and Sorting Hat. Its appearance caused his peers to burst into whispered conversation, while Harry opted to pay attention to those near him. After all, he'd already been here and seen this. One thing he did notice was that Daphne was shivering, something that had started during their trek across the lake, and he debated for a moment before motioning for her to approach. She hesitated before moving to stand beside him and Harry casually threw an arm around her shoulders, making her tense up. Leaning in, he lowered his voice so he wouldn't be overheard. "My wand is in a holster at my wrist. Since we're technically not supposed to know any magic before we get here, I didn't think it'd look good for me to be waving my wand around casting things during the sorting." That made Daphne relax marginally, and then his Warming Charm swirled around her and she melted against his side as his spell chased the chill away.

Listening to the Sorting Hat's song with half an ear, Harry sighed in relief when it turned out to be the same as the first time around. He knew from the past that the Sorting Hat could react to the changing circumstances of the magical world, and had half expected something referencing a dimensional traveler or the daughter of Thor Odinson to pop up in the song. But his secret was still safe it appeared. Stepping forward, McGonagall called up Hannah Abbott and the Sorting Hat was placed onto her head. "Hufflepuff!" Her tie and tights both went from solely black to alternating bands of yellow and black, and Hannah rushed off to join her new housemates at the Hufflepuff table.

"Bones, Susan!"

"Hufflepuff!"

The next two went just the way Harry remembered, with both Terry Boot and Mandy Brocklehurst being sorted into Ravenclaw. But instead of Lavender Brown following Mandy, an unfamiliar boy with brown hair moved to sit on the stool… when Professor McGonagall called 'Brown, Lawrence'. Huh. Harry's eyes wandered over to land on the redheaded girl he'd seen with the Weasleys on Platform 9 3/4. Did that mean then that it wasn't a case of Draco and Altaira, but that this girl was in fact the Ron of this world? How very amusing.

Millicent Bulstrode followed Lawrence and quickly became the first Slytherin of the year, and was followed into the house of serpents by one Maeve Campbell, the girl with reddish-brown hair who he'd first seen on the train. Two more Ravenclaw Boys and Crabbe later, it was Tracey's turn beneath the Sorting Hat. As she slowly walked to the front of the Great Hall, Harry tried to figure out where she might end up based on his two encounters with her thus far. Perhaps Slytherin again, but that was doubtful. Gryffindor also seemed unlikely for a reason he just couldn't put his finger on. Maybe… "Ravenclaw!"

Harry blinked as Tracey's uniform acquired blue and bronze accents, offering her a reassuring smile as she slid off the stool and moved to join her new housemates. As nice as it would have been to stay together as a group, the odds of all five of them - six with Tara - ending up in the same house were miniscule. And it gave him a pair of eyes in the house he now doubted that Su was fated for. His mind went to work, retooling his plans accordingly to compensate for both this latest development and the personalities of the girls that were shaping up to be his inner circle at Hogwarts this time around. Another unfamiliar student, a girl named Fay Dunbar, was sorted into Gryffindor, followed on the stool by a string of five straight boys: a Gryffindor, two Ravenclaws, a Hufflepuff, and another Slytherin. Then it was Hermione's turn to approach the stool and sit beneath the Sorting Hat.

"Gryffindor!"

Not a surprise, really, especially given how feisty this version was compared to the original. Daphne was the next to sit beneath the Sorting Hat and someone on high either liked him or hated him, Harry wasn't sure which, because Daphne soon followed the muggleborn over to the Gryffindor table, taking the seat across from her. While Harry couldn't quite bring himself to be unhappy about her being in the house he'd presumably end up in, it meant his list of friendly potential Slytherins was rapidly thinning and he still didn't have eyes in the dungeons.

Granted Tara would probably end up there… but then again, Daphne was 'supposed' to end up in Slytherin as well and he'd seen how that had ended.

The sorting continued, back to back aberrations coming when Megan Jones was sorted into Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff, compensated for a moment later when Jen Ledger became a Hufflepuff instead of a Gryffindor. Surprisingly enough, Neville somehow managed to make it into Gryffindor despite his rather Malfoy-esque personality. Two students later, Tara and Draco took their turns under the Sorting Hat, each Malfoy being sent to Slytherin as soon as the hat touched their head. Well, if none of his other choices ended up in green and silver…

It wasn't until Nott was on the stool - right after Roger Malone - that Harry realized a face from his world was missing. While this world had a few new faces, it was evidently missing at least Kellah Morris… and he didn't see Sally-Anne Perks, either, come to think of it. He watched Nott and then Pansy go to Slytherin, Padma to Ravenclaw, and then Parvati ascended to sit on the stool. And sit. And sit. Finally, the Sorting Hat came to a decision. "Slytherin!"

Huh. Well there was another option if he didn't want to involve his cousin in his plans.

"Potter, Harry."

After waiting a moment, Harry shook his head and remembered that nobody would be pointing and whispering here. He was just Harry, not the Boy-Who-Lived. Moving up to sit on the chair, Harry felt the hat touch his head and waited. After a moment of silence, he realized what the problem probably was and carefully lowered his occlumency shields before reaching out with his mind. _'So, out of curiosity, can we just accept the first Sorting Hat's judgment here and put me back in Gryffindor? I'm so hungry I could eat a hippocamp.'_

_'Funny, Mister Potter. Maybe I will take the other Sorting Hat's judgment… and put you straight into Slytherin where you belong. Is that what you'd like?'_ Harry cringed; the wizarding world was going to have a hard enough time with a person whose power greatly outstripped that of its 'savior'. Going into the house of dark wizards would only make it worse. Fuck. _'Language, Mister Potter. No, you are still mostly a Gryffindor at heart… although you've picked up more Slytherin traits as of late than most people would expect a Gryffindor to possess. Picking friends based on their usefulness, for one.'_

Harry's heart raced; this wasn't going anything at all like he'd anticipated. He absolutely could not be a Slytherin. He'd be cut off from Hermione and Daphne at a minimum due to house rivalry, and nobody would trust that anything he did was altruistic, rather than due to a hidden selfish ambition. _'Not just for their uses. Their personalities matter too. I don't want another Ron on my hands, after all. But is it really wrong of me to not want to end up carrying dead weight, especially with what I know is coming?'_

_'Mmm. And considering their future looks?'_

_'I'm male. So hex me.'_

_'Right. Well, as reluctant as I am - that patronus of yours is as clear a sign as any of where I should be sending you - you may be the lesser of two evils. After seeing into the Longbottom boy's mind, I fear for the future of this world. They will need you, Harry Potter, when the world falls down around them. They will turn to you and cry out for the savior that Longbottom cannot be. And you will be that savior. It's who you are. You can do no less. But in this narrow-minded world they have built, you cannot be a savior unless you come from…'_ The hat twitched again on Harry's head. "Gryffindor!"

Whipping the hat off his head and putting it on the chair, Harry hurried over to sit next to Daphne, giving Hermione a nod and a smile. The strawberry blonde immediately leaned in, nodding towards where Su was standing with the other students who still needed to be sorted. "I thought she was Li Su, last name being Li because of some weird Chinese thing?" Harry nodded slowly; they'd gone over that when the girls introduced themselves at his house. "Then why wasn't she sorted before Longbottom?"

"Because the school saw Li Su and assumed her last name was Su. And she figured that if they were going to let someone ignorant of her culture address the Hogwarts letters, then why not take advantage of it to make sure she was sorted after the Patils so she could be in a house where Parvati isn't? She met them at Madam Malkin's and wasn't too impressed." They watched as Zacharias Smith was sorted into Hufflepuff again and then Su comma Li was called forth to sit beneath the hat. "With her plan and some of the other things she's said, I'm guessing Slytherin despite it being where Parvati ended up…" Which meant she could be his eyes in that house, come to think of it…

"Gryffindor!"

"…but I've been wrong before." Su bounced over and took up the seat remaining on Harry's left, and the quartet watched as Tara's Welsh friend Branwen joined the Hufflepuffs. Dean was sorted next and became a Gryffindor, followed by Lisa Turpin going to Ravenclaw, and 'Anne Weasley' becoming yet another Gryffindor girl. The sixth, if Harry was counting right. An 'Ellen Williams' - a girl Harry assumed to be a differently-named Siobhan - then became the seventh Gryffindor girl, only to be followed by the actual Siobhan Williams who went to Hufflepuff. That made three sets of twins in his year alone - two identical and one fraternal - and neither pair of identical twins was identical enough to have both members end up in same house. Zabini was the last to be sorted and became the final Slytherin, and the stool and hat were hustled off as Dumbledore rose to his feet. A short speech later, food hit the table and conversation fell by the wayside as everyone 'tucked in'.

Dinner was a bit odd for Harry; he'd been isolated amongst the Weasleys rather than spending time with his peers the first time and they'd all treated him a bit worshipfully, although that had quickly worn off in the case of the twins. With Hermione, Su, and Daphne for company, there was joking, idle chatter in between bites of food… Su even felt daring enough to use a fork to poach a carrot off his plate. Nobody would have dared do that in his old world. It felt… normal. Good, even. He was by far the quietest of the quartet, though, busy thinking both about the secrets he held - Tara could be called upon to be a bonder for an Unbreakable Vow but did he want to disclose his secrets or lie and, in the case of the former, how soon - and the problems that would be coming his way over the next few years.

Obviously, he couldn't simply accuse Quirrell of having Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head and let things go from there. Not only would it tip his hand as to his unnatural knowledge, but Harry would look like quite a fool if this was yet another place where his universe and this one varied. Maybe Snape was Voldemort's vessel here. Maybe Quirrell would still do it but was nothing more than a willing servant. Maybe one of the other teachers had gotten possessed. The possibilities were endless.

Second year would be obvious and yet complicated: all he had to do was locate the diary horcrux… but who knew who would end up with it. If Malfoy was smarter in this dimension, he'd target a neutral family or even use one of his children's future housemates instead of dropping it in the cauldron of a family who'd sent every member into Gryffindor for the last few centuries. That assumed Lucius was smarter here, though. So it could be very simple or very hard, and he wouldn't know until next fall. Joy.

After that came third year… would Pettigrew escape Azkaban like Sirius had? What were those crimes the book hadn't listed? Would he come after anyone in the castle? Not only would Longbottom be there - assuming he hadn't flunked out or died by then - but so would Harry, his younger sisters, and Sirius's daughter Cassie. If Peter held a grudge against his two former best friends, they'd all present good targets for revenge.

Fourth year… he knew what he had to do in his fourth year. Nobody would die in the second war if there was no second war. He would either enter as the fourth champion again, find a way to make his way in as Hogwart's real champion, or sneak into the maze and grab the cup first. But Voldemort would die in Little Hangleton that night, Harry was certain of it.

After dinner, dessert, and Dumbledore's announcements - including the 'most painful death' bit about a certain corridor - Percy Weasley and a girl his age with blonde hair, a smattering of brown freckles, glasses, and a bright smile descended on them. "First years, follow us! My name is Percy Weasley and I shall be your fifth year prefect this year. Please, stay with us, the hallways can be very confusing and I don't want any of you getting lost on your first night."

"Oh, lighten up, Percy. It's not like they can lose sight of that bright red mop of yours." The girl's grin widened as most of the first years laughed, herding from behind to keep them moving after Percy as they ascended the moving stairs towards where Gryffindor Tower was. "My name is Cherise Cram, and I'm your other fifth year prefect. Between the two of us, we can answer any question you have or solve almost any problem you need… but girls, I recommend coming to me if you have feminine issues unless you want to see a boy's face turn Gryffindor red."

After a lengthy hike and the requisite explanation of the portrait system and an introduction to the Fat Lady, the new Gryffindors were led into their common room and guided over to one corner full of sofas and chairs. Why quickly became evident. "Right then. Just so you know, every year the prefects sit the first years down and we go around and introduce ourselves so we can start getting to know each other." Percy puffed up, rubbing the sleeve of his robe against his prefect badge. "I'll go first, just to start things off. My name is Percy Weasley. I'm the third of seven children, and oldest of the four currently at Hogwarts. My brothers Fred and George are third years, and Anne is sitting among you. Next year, our sister Ginny will be joining us. I hope to become Head Boy, then go on to work at the Ministry of Magic. Cherise?"

Cherise grinned and dropped onto the sofa between Su and Daphne, leaning back and kicking her feet up on a nearby coffee table with her legs carefully crossed for modesty reasons. "I'm Cherise Cram. Still, just like five minutes ago. I have a fraternal twin sister in Hufflepuff named Janae. We don't look much alike but if you want to earn some serious brownie points with me, walk up to her and pretend you think she's me. It winds her up so much it's hilarious. Unlike Percy, I don't have my whole life planned out yet and so when I graduate, I just plan to go somewhere and do… something."

From there, since the group was divided along gender lines with Harry and Hermione sitting together on a two-seater and forming the border between the two sexes, they got to hear about the utterly enthralling lives of Seamus, 'Larry', Dean, and Neville, including a particularly bad and overly dramatic account of how the latter supposedly survived the Killing Curse.

Then all eyes turned to Harry, and he sighed. Bugger. 


	7. Chapter 7

7\. Settling In

"My name is Harry Potter… and you know, I wish my parents had warned me this was coming. I would have written a speech or something." He was honestly stymied for the first time since coming back. What did he say to make himself sound like a semi-average eleven-year-old boy? Without coming off as either boorish or uninteresting - or both, in one notable case - as the other boys had?

Leaning across Daphne and Hermione, Cherise patted Harry on the arm reassuringly. "This isn't your OWLs, Harry. Just relax and be yourself."

Giving the prefect a small smile and a nod, Harry thought for a moment before deciding on a brief summary that would give away precious little about him, forcing people to come to him and get genuine first impressions instead of forming it here. "Right then. My name is Harry Potter and I'm from Perranarworthal in Cornwall. My favorite colors are black, gold, and green. My father is a pureblood and my mother is a muggleborn; they were the Head Boy and Girl for the Class of '88. I like quidditch, reading, and I've been learning to cook from my mother because I have twin younger sisters who she was making help her and anything they touched turned out horrible. And I'm a growing boy, so a table full of food I can't eat is a crime." There was scattered laughter and Harry furrowed his brow; was there anything else he should tell them? Not that he could think of. Turning to the brunette beside him, Harry gestured for her to proceed. "Hermione?"

Hermione was busy glaring at Neville, who was staring back at her with wide eyes, evidently just finally noticing the presence of his abuser from the train. After a moment, she scoffed and looked away, turning her attention to Cherise. "My name is Hermione Granger and I'm a muggleborn from Winchester. I'm looking forward to Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts because they seem like the most exciting disciplines of magic. I want to learn how to fly and play quidditch, and back home I was the goalkeeper for my school's field hockey team."

While that didn't seem to mean much to most of the group, Dean gave a start at that and so did Megan. "Wow. You play field hockey? So did my sister but she had to give it up because she broke her leg one too many times and it didn't heal right." Deciding her outburst was a good enough reason to jump the line, she turned to the others and waved. "I'm Megan Jones, by the way. Pleased to meet you. Also a muggleborn, if you didn't pick up on that on your own. And if you can't figure it out from the accent, I'm Welsh. From Swansea, to be specific. I don't really have a favorite subject yet because I didn't get to Diagon Alley until two days ago because my family was too busy to make the trip from Swansea to London. I've always loved helping my mam in the garden, though, so maybe Herbology. Although if it's anything like normal gardening and we end up kneeling in the dirt, I'm going to be very glad we spent the extra bit of money to get the Evans Charm on all my skirts."

That grabbed Harry's attention. While it could very well be a charm created by someone named Evan, there was an equal chance that the spell's formal name was the Evans Charm… and given there was no magical Evans family that he knew of, what was the likelihood of another magical person sharing his muggleborn mother's maiden name? "The Evans Charm?"

Megan rose to her feet, as did Hermione. The two looked at each other before grinning and drawing their wands, each tapping the tip of hers against a seemingly featureless spot on the waistband of her skirt. "Real women wear trousers." Anne, Daphne, and Cherise let out indignant huffs at that even as Harry watched in fascination, the two girls' black uniform skirts morphing into slacks identical to the ones he was wearing. "The patriarchy is keeping me down." The trousers became skirts once more and the two girls retook their seats, ignoring the looks the other girls and even a few of the boys were giving them. Personally, Harry found it all quite intriguing. He knew his mother was a genius with charms from mentions by others even before coming to this universe, but he'd never even thought to ask what she'd done with the ten years of life she gained in this new world. He probably should have, he realized. Maybe there were other, more useful spells wandering around in that brilliant mind of hers that he could put to good use.

Dismissing those thoughts as contemplations for another time, Harry half-listened to Anne Weasley ramble on about life in Ottery St. Catchpole with five older brothers and a younger sister before tuning back in as the others realized they'd skipped two girls thanks to Megan's line jumping and attention turned to the former eagle and snake now in lions' clothing. The pair looked at each other across Cherise, each gesturing for the other to proceed, before Hermione leaned across two laps and jabbed Su in the ribs with her wand, prodding the diminutive girl into speaking. "Ouch. Alright, fine, I'll go. My name is Li Su. For those of you who've never met someone actually from China, that means my given name is Su and my family name is Li. Still, we're not that different. Unless we're friends, you're not allowed to call me Su, so just call me Li and you'll probably get an answer. I was born in Shanghai but when I'm in England, I live in Harwich in Essex. My parents are the current owners of a very successful import business - which means they get paid to find and bring stuff from around the world to Britain so you can spend your money on it - and when I graduate, I'm going to work for them."

There were a few confused murmurs as she finished but Su didn't seem inclined to clarify anything, they soon gave up and turned to Daphne. "My name is Daphne Greengrass and I'm a pureblood from Woodbridge in Suffolk. Since she doesn't seem to care about keeping it a secret, I might as well admit that Tracey Davis is my half-sister; she was sorted into Ravenclaw tonight, if you weren't paying attention. I'm the end of line for two houses through my father, including being the heir presumptive of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass, and a third through my mother. So as fun as it would be to play pretend and talk about what job I'd like to have some day, I'll probably be either engaged or married by the time we graduate. After that, I'll settle into the life of a proper manor housewife: raise a child or two, organize dinners and parties, and so forth and so on. I know that freaks you muggleborns out, but that's how our world works and so I'm just being realistic."

"Three houses, eh? Including a Noble and Most Ancient one?" Neville grinned and leaned forward in his seat. "Well, I'll have you know that the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbot…"

Daphne narrowed her eyes, jabbing her wand forward. "_Stupefy_!" A jet of red light caught Neville right in the face, throwing him back in his chair so hard it tipped over, spilling him onto the floor. While not particularly impressive in the grand scheme of things, the fact that Daphne could perform that spell so well as a first year was decidedly noteworthy. Everyone looked at Daphne in disbelief, the strawberry blonde glaring at Neville's fallen form as she tucked her wand away. "By the time we graduate. I'm eleven right now for one, and your family couldn't afford me for another." She looked around at her peers. "Anyone else want to make an early offer?"

The one true unknown from the sorting - Harry didn't count Ellen as such, given she was just the twin of someone who'd existed albeit as an only child in his original world - raised her hand, only to cringe at the glare Daphne shot her way. "Kidding!" The brunette ran one hand through her hair nervously as she looked around. "My name is Fay Dunbar. I'm from Kirkwall on Mainland Orkney. Like Megan, I'm pretty sure the accent makes it obvious that I'm Scottish. Um… I like quidditch like a few of you although I don't really have any one team that's my favorite. Anyone Scottish will do. I think my favorite subject is going to be Potions, I want to be an auror when I graduate, and… that's it I think. Ellen?"

"Dia daoibh. Guess the Sorting Hat felt like giving the dorm a complete set of non-English girls this year." Evidently giving birth to a pair of twins instead of having only one child wasn't the only difference when it came to this world's Williams family, Harry mused, because he distinctly recalled Siobhan speaking RP when he'd interacted with her at DA meetings. Her accent was also distinctly different compared to Seamus's, which was a surprise to him because… well, he'd never really been exposed to enough Irish people to know they had more than one accent. "My name is Ellen Williams, and I have a twin sister Siobhan who was sorted into Hufflepuff. She's identical, unlike Cherise's sister, and even without trying we keep ending up wearing the same things and doing our hair the same way. So don't feel bad if you mix us up when we're not in uniform, and we won't get mad either. And I'm not sure what classes I'm going to like or what I want to be when I grow up, but I have plenty of time to figure it out."

"That you do. One thing you don't have plenty of time to do here is sleep." Rising to her feet, Cherise stretched before covering her mouth as she yawned. "I don't know what kind of schedule everyone kept at home but classes start at nine o'clock sharp and breakfast is even earlier. So while you don't have to go to bed right away, I strongly recommend heading up to your dorms now so you can unpack and such." When nobody moved, she rolled her eyes before pointing one hand in the direction of the stairway that led up to the boys' dorms and the other towards the girls' stairs. "Shoo."

Harry offered the older girl a salute before hopping to his feet, waving goodnight to his friends - or the girls that were becoming his friends, at least - before making his way over to the stairway. The dull roar of the common room fell away as he ascended the stairs, but it quickly returned as the other four boys in his year piled in after him, Neville being carried by the other three. Rolling his eyes, Harry drew his wand and surreptitiously revived Neville. The boy thrashed, causing the others to drop him, and looked around in surprise. "Whah? Huh?"

"Daphne stunned you for being a twit." Harry grinned and grabbed his trunk from the stack in the middle of the room, pondering for a moment before grabbing the same bed as in his old universe. It was the perfect location in his opinion: neither too close nor too far from the fire, and not next to the door so he could sleep in on weekends while his dormmates got up and went about their plans for the day. "Was pretty funny, if you ask me. Right in the face at point blank range."

Growling, Neville struggled to his feet and pulled out his wand. "First that mudblood Granger back on the train and now this. Did you know they had to have Madam Pomfrey apparate onto the train an hour out so she could fix my teeth back up?" Rolling up his sleeves, he stomped toward the door. "I don't care if they are girls. Nobody treats Neville Longbottom like that and gets away with it!"

Harry narrowed his eyes. Even if he hadn't possessed a soft spot when it came to the girls in question, not only did he loathe the word mudblood, but violence against women was completely unacceptable in his book. Well, except for that time he'd cursed Bellatrix Lestrange to hell and back before ending her life. And the time he'd killed Alecto Carrow. But did either of those beasts really count as women? Oh, and there was the matter of his duel with Cissy, but that had been self-defense on his end and she'd recovered from it quickly enough. At any rate… "I don't think so, Longbottom. Now put your wand away before you get hurt. Again."

"And who do you think's going to hurt me? You?" Neville laughed and tapped his wand against his forehead. "I'm the Boy-Who-Lived. You're just the son of a mudblood and a whiny pureblood auror, according to my father. I got an exception from the Minister himself to begin learning magic last year. You don't stand a chance against…"

"_Expelliarmus_."

The spell caught Neville in the back, spinning him around like a top and dumping him to the floor as his wand was ripped out of his hand. Cherise caught it neatly and tucked it into the waistband of her skirt before gathering her blonde curls up into a bun and shoving her own wand through it to hold it in place. "I was just coming up here to see if Longbottom needed to be revived. Looks like I turned up just in time. Longbottom, ten points from Gryffindor for inappropriate language and threatening harm to your housemates. I'll be turning your wand over to Professor McGonagall when the prefects meet with her in a few minutes; you can explain yourself to her when you decide you want it back. If you need help with anything, talk to the second years or the three non-Weasley third years. And on that note… goodnight, boys. Harry."

Being singled out - and the little smile that accompanied his name - made Harry raise an eyebrow, but he shrugged it off as Cherise departed and closed the door behind herself. After watching the other three boys help Neville to his feet, Harry waited for the attention to inevitably return to him before raising his right hand and flicking his wrist, causing his wand to jump into his hand. "You're lucky I saw her behind you, Longbottom. She was a lot nicer than I would have been." Turning away, he walked back towards his bed. "Besides, Hermione already knocked out your teeth and Daphne stunned you. Do you really want to pick a fight with either of them a second time? If I'd lost to a girl once, I'd be embarrassed. If I'd lost twice, especially in one day, I'd be humiliated. I wouldn't be trying for a third time."

After casting a few protective charms around his bed as the others went back to fawning over Neville, Harry opened his trunk and dug around for a few minutes before finding the book he was looking for. A quick inspection showed the rest of his possessions had survived the journey unbroken and so after closing, locking, and applying a few charms to his trunk as well, he crawled up to rest with his back against the headboard and opened his copy of _Snogging Seductresses: Things I Learned From the World's Most Provocative Magical Species_. And if this was another case of Lockhart and this 'Selene Shagwell' woman was just making up her adventures? Especially given the moving photograph of her on the back flap of the dust jacket? Harry didn't want to know about it.

Apart from the obvious allure of such a book, Harry was finding the information inside genuinely interesting. Selene had literally traveled the entire world, meeting and interviewing dryads, huldra, huli jing, kitsune, sidhe, sirens, succubi, and even an all-female clan of vampires that seduced their prey and took enough to survive but never killed. Veela, though, were of particular interest because of the upcoming - in a way - Triwizard Tournament, to say nothing of Anastasiya and Cassie. And what he found in the book shocked him.

Here, it turned out Anastasiya's wheat blonde hair wasn't dark for a veela, but rather light. Originating in the central and eastern regions of Europe, 'baseline' veela possessed either dark brown or black hair, rather than the silvery-blonde he'd become accustomed to from Fleur's presence during the war effort. Veela actually possessed a peculiar mix of dominant and recessive genes… and Harry had been rather amazed that a witch had known enough about muggle science to even mention something like that. Unlike his original universe, there were no half or quarter veela here; all girls born to veela mothers were veela, while all boys were simply human boys - albeit with a tendency to be a bit on the 'pretty' side. Their appearance genes, however, were largely recessive so apart from being 'pretty' as a rule, Veela tended to breed into the local population so that each successive generation looked more and more like the native people, until they were distinguished from the normal humans only by their fantastic beauty. And while the veela of this world had retained their allure, as was evident from his encounters with Anastasiya, they held mastery over storms and nature rather than fire. Not just offensively, either: some veela were known to possess the power to heal someone just by laying their hands on the sick person, and Selene had even met a veela who possessed prophetic abilities.

Idly wondering what abilities Fleur and Gabrielle - and Cassie, for that matter - possessed in this universe, Harry flipped to the next page and continued reading about, small world, Selene's wanderings in eastern Europe and her encounter with a trio of young veela named Anastasiya, Lena, and Yulia. In Ukraine. While it wasn't an uncommon name in the area according to his aunt… why take the chance? Granted Anastasiya was a pretty woman but she was his godfather's woman and there were just some things one didn't want to know about their family members. Skimming forward until her name stopped appearing, Harry perked up as a section on Selene's travels in Bulgaria began. If the Quidditch World Cup was anything to go by, they had some bloody gorgeous veela.

Plus he wasn't actually related to any of them.

"Right then. There are three rooms. That means four of us will be spread over the first two rooms and someone gets their own. Does anyone want to volunteer to be in a double or should we just put slips of paper in a hat and start drawing?" If there was one thing her parents had taught her how to do well, Tara mused, it was how to seize control of the rabble and guide them to the destination she desired for them. But while Lucius fancied himself a master of the art - and Draco was a pale shadow of their father - his abilities paled in comparison to those possessed by Narcissa Malfoy. She was a virtuoso in the fine arts of manipulation and control, manipulator of the manipulator. And at her right hand, Tara had learned a great many things that would serve her well in Slytherin. Starting right now.

Pansy sent her beseeching looks but after Tara failed to so much as blink at her - Pansy was a dear, but she wasn't going to voluntarily give up that much extra space for her - the black-haired girl huffed and turned to Millicent. "Want to room together? If there's a four out of five chance I'm going to end up getting paired with someone, it might as well be someone I know." The larger girl let out a grunt and shrugged before grabbing the handle of her own trunk in one hand and Pansy's in the other. Waving, Pansy opened the door to the leftmost room and the two disappeared inside to settle in.

And then there were three. After a moment, an idea came to Tara and she opened her trunk, slipping her hand into her money bag and retrieving a single galleon. "Why don't we flip for it? Parvati, you and I go first. The winner will go on to face Maeve and the loser goes in the double. Maeve, obviously you'll face one of us and if you win, you get the solo room. If you lose, you go with the other loser in the double. Sound fair?" The two girls looked at each other, shrugged ambivalently, and then turned back to Tara. "Good. Parvati, head or dragon? And I have to say, I love your name. Very pretty and exotic. My mother just took the name of a star and stuck an 'a' on the end of it to get mine."

"Thanks. It's the name of the goddess who was Shiva's second consort. Um… dragon, I think." Tara held out the galleon so Parvati could inspect it before pulling out her wand and using it to hover the coin a few inches over her palm. A whispered spell her mother had taught her just for this occasion - because people tended to accept losing better if they thought they'd actually had a chance at succeeding, according to her - sent the coin spinning end over end, creating a blurry golden ball that hovered over her palm. Parvati chanted 'dragon' softly under her breath as the coin began to slow, her eager expression morphing into a pout when the flipping coin stopped with Merlin's head facing upward. "Drat. Oh well. Maeve, your turn."

As Parvati collected her trunk and moved towards the room on the right, Maeve moved forward and used her finger to slowly rotate the floating coin. "Hmm. You're a Malfoy. My parents have told me what your family's like. I wouldn't put it past you to have a way of controlling that spell so the side you want always comes up. But then if I insist on doing it myself… I'd have to flip it the old-fashioned way and then you can make fun of me for doing it the 'muggle way' and I still have only a half a chance of being the one who gets the solo room. So… I think I'm going to save myself the trouble and go get to know Parvati."

Tara pouted as she watched the other girl go. "Hmmph. Well that wasn't as much fun as I was hoping. It's no fun knowing how to cheat if there's nobody to screw out of things." Tossing the galleon back into her open trunk, she closed the lid and slowly lifted it into the air with a swish and a flick. Then she strode forward, entering the center room and her home for the next ten months.

It was certainly… interesting. Her room at Malfoy Manor was southern facing, allowing her to look out over the expansive gardens and filling her room with light. Her dorm, on the other hand, looked out into the lake. Four globes of roiling emerald fire filled the room with an eerie, pulsating green light that cast odd highlights over the silver hangings of the four poster bed she'd be sleeping in.

Well, no amount of pondering how much nicer and more welcoming the other dorms might be would change the fact that she had been sorted into Slytherin. Squaring her shoulders, Tara floated her trunk to rest at the bed and then flipped the lid up again. She'd prepared for the eventuality that either the furnishings wouldn't be up to her standards or that she'd have spare room to use as she saw fit; her trunk was full of furniture that needed to be enlarged and moved into place, clothes to put away, books to shelve once there was a place to put them…

"Dobby!"

As far as dorms went, Tracey Davis mused, she didn't have it half bad. Definitely better than one of the underwater dorms her father had talked about having back when he was in Slytherin. And given that she didn't know anyone in her new house, she definitely wasn't going to complain about Ravenclaw Tower having individual rooms for each student instead of group dorms the way Gryffindor Tower did.

Her first taste of what the next seven years would hold for her had come when she'd been the one to answer the doorknocker's riddle for the group and they'd passed through a tunnel into the common room. Done up in shades of blue, the few walls not possessing bookshelves held windows that looked west out over the mountains, and the domed ceiling bore a beautiful painting of the night sky.

After a quick tour of the features of the common room - the bookcases organized by subject, study areas with special dampening charms to mute what little noise pollution the common room had, and the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw - the group had split in half and Penelope had lead them upstairs to show them to their dorms. There were seven floors, she'd explained, each housing a bathroom and one room per female student. As the girls aged, they would ascend the tower, eventually occupying the topmost floor during their final year. And with that, she'd left them to their own devices and headed up to her own dorm to settle in for the year, leaving the five girls standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Tracey had been the first to crack, grabbing her trunk and fleeing through the door marked with her last name, the others bursting into motion behind her.

Giving one last look around her room, Tracey rose from the chair in front of the beautiful oak desk the school had provided her with and moved to sit on the edge of her bed. Picking up the mirror sitting atop her nightstand, she fiddled a tendril of mahogany hair before tucking it behind her ear and clearing her throat. "Daphne Greengrass."

After spending Sunday relaxing and 'exploring Hogwarts' with his friends, Monday dawned bright and early and, still used to his five o'clock wake up calls back at Potter Manor, Harry was up and moving before any of his classmates. Or at least up. Rather than go for a run either in the Room of Requirements or around the grounds, he spent a bit of time reading in bed before gathering up his toiletries and a clean uniform and heading towards the bathroom. A cold burst to wake him up, a quick warm shower to get clean, and then he was ready to get his day started.

Much to his surprise, there was already someone else sitting in the common room when he arrived. Hermione was sitting on a sofa with a satchel full of books at her feet, keeping herself amused by bouncing an orange ball against the head of a yard long stick. Harry eyed it curiously, wondering how hard Neville's head was by comparison and how it would fare against Hermione's field hockey stick if he was dumb enough to insult her when she had it out.

Or rather when, not if, he did it. Given how stupid the Boy-Who-Lived seemed to be in this universe, Harry regarded it as an inevitable event rather than a potential problem. Hopefully one he could manage to sell tickets to. George and Fred weren't the only ones who could profit off their peers.

Feeling a bit playful, Harry kept to the shadows and fired off a charm at Hermione, hitting the back of her head and creating Gryffindor red streaks in her chocolate brown mane. As he pondered a way to approach her and bring it up without immediately drawing suspicion to himself, Megan descended from the girls' dorms and squealed. "Oh Hermione, that's brill! Did you get one of the older students to do that to your hair or do you know the spell yourself?"

Hermione eyed Megan for a moment, reaching up to pat her hair, before racing up the steps into her dorm. Harry knew the exact moment she stepped in front of a mirror, as it was accompanied by the loudest profanity he'd heard since that time two young men had come to the front door of Number Four asking Uncle Vernon to sign a petition in favor of the Civil Partnership Act. When Hermione descended the stairs again, she looked around wildly before her eyes landed on him. "You!"

"Me?" Harry held his hands up in surrender and put on his best innocent face, slowly backing away from her. "Now Hermione, you shouldn't jump to conclusions. Just because I mentioned my father being a prankster while we were talking on the train doesn't mean I'm responsible for your hair spontaneously changing color."

Hermione continued to eye him suspiciously but thankfully Percy chose that moment to make his first appearance of the morning, and Hermione latched on to him in hopes of getting her hair fixed. After a simple 'finite' failed, he tried a few diagnostic charms and frowned. "It's definitely a cosmetic charm of some kind, but this isn't my area of expertise. It looks like you'll need to find one of the older female prefects, since Cherise is… unavoidably detained… this morning."

That caught Harry's attention; while he hadn't been at his most observant back in his first year, he was pretty sure he would have remembered a prefect turning up sick or injured on the first day of classes. "What happened to her?"

After a moment of contemplation, Percy sighed and leaned in towards Harry and Hermione. "Please keep this to yourselves, but Cherise decided that Dumbledore's warning about the third floor corridor didn't apply to her because she was a prefect and paid a visit during her rounds last night. She's currently recovering in the hospital wing."

Well bugger. Cherise had been nice enough to him so far and very easy on the eyes to boot. A girl like that getting mauled by Fluffy was a damn shame. They likely wouldn't be seeing her for a while, even with Madam Pomfrey's talents, and for all the wizarding world's ability to heal the body's insides, their ability to remove anything beyond minor scars seemed to be sorely lacking. And if Fluffy had gotten a few bites in, Cherise was going to come away from this bearing a resemblance to Remus. "Alright. Thanks, Percy. Ready for breakfast, Hermione? We can get our schedules for the year and see what classes we have today. Which reminds me, do you really want to drag all your books down there when you don't know which ones you'll even need?"

"Eh, I need to stay in shape. It'll be good for me." Hermione hefted her bag experimentally a few times before sliding the strap over her shoulder. "And I would, but I told Su and Daphne that we'd wait for them. Or that I'd wait for them, which means you're waiting for them if you want to eat breakfast with me. Although if they don't show up in the next few minutes, I might change my mind. I want to make friends and all, but nobody gets between me and my breakfast. Or my dinner. I'll tolerate lunch delays, but only if it's because of studying or sports."

Merlin, this Hermione was scary. Almost like what Harry would picture from a child of the Ron and Hermione of his old dimension, just without the freckles. Seeing as how he wanted Su to be part of his inner circle of friends in this universe - and hopefully Daphne as well - it was quite fortunate for him that they descended the stairs about a minute later, before Hermione could get too impatient and drag him off to eat.

"Nice hair, Hermione." Reaching up, Su tugged one of the red streaks and then laughed, dancing back out of the way as Hermione tried to slap at her hand. "You know, I liked that picture of you with the 'microbraids' that you showed us last night. Maybe we could braid the red streaks and put gold beads on the end? McGonagall might give you points for house pride."

Harry pondered that. Their head of house had an odd sense of humor. Maybe he should turn his own hair into red and gold spikes to see what she'd say? Mind busy trying to decide between fixing Hermione and changing his own hair, Harry didn't notice Daphne's approach until she elbowed him roughly in the ribs. "Don't even think about it, Harry." He raised an eyebrow and she tugged gently on his arm. "Whatever strange thoughts are going on inside your head. That is not the face of an innocent man. Now be a gentleman and escort me to breakfast. And can we try and save a spot for Tracey? She's mirror called me for the last two nights because she's lonely. I want to make sure she's okay."

Fine with him. Hmm. If he paid extra attention to her to help her get over her loneliness, she'd probably be more likely to… wait. The Sorting Hat had warned him about the habits he'd been developing as of late. So no, he would make a point of trying to include Tracey and keep her spirits up because she was Daphne's half-sister and an acquaintance - verging on a friend - in her own right. Any possible use she might have in his future plans would just be a bonus. "Sure. Why don't we take up six seats between the four of us? Two of us sit on each side of the table with a gap between each pair? You can invite Tracey and I'll see if my cousin wants to sit with us."

"Your cousin? Who's that? Because… I don't think there are any cadet branches of the House of Potter, meaning it's not a first cousin on your father's side. Your mother is a muggleborn, so I don't know her relatives." Daphne went silent as Harry led her through the portrait hole and towards the Grand Staircase, Su and Hermione chattering quietly behind them. "I know you're related to the Blacks through your father, meaning you have a bunch of more distant cousins there…" Harry raised an eyebrow at that; the girl was good. Probably knew more about his ancestry than he did, come to think of it. "Let me guess. Tara?"

Harry eyed at the strawberry blonde curiously, Daphne managing to hold his gaze for a few seconds before looking away. "And if it is? We're not quite best friends, but we're close enough that I'd enjoy talking to her at breakfast every now and then. Why not do it while you're inviting your sister over too? Having a Ravenclaw there too might keep people from freaking out about the Slytherin. Or at least freaking out as much."

Shrugging doubtfully, Daphne continued to avoid his gaze. "Fine. But if she ends up being mean to Tracey and I have to curse her to defend my family's honor or some such, don't say I didn't warn you." Turning her head, she eyed Harry critically. "You know, you're lucky my choices for friends are so limited, or you'd have to work a whole lot harder to keep me around. But Neville is vile and the other boys aren't anything to write home about either. Anne is… you know, I don't know if your family is friends with the Weasleys or anything so I'm going to just say 'no' and leave it at that. I know something about muggles through Tracey and my stepmother but Megan's a bit too muggle for my tastes. At least Hermione is interested in learning about my world, even if she's a bit snooty sometimes about us 'backwards wizarding folk'. Fay speaks Scottish Gaelic, Ellen speaks Irish, and the two are evidently close enough that they can go off into their own little conversations and ignore the rest of us. And Su's interesting because she was raised in an entirely different culture. But if I take Su or Hermione I get you, or at least that's what it feels like. Which is fine by me; I'm a long view sort of girl. When we get older, we'll need a nice young wizard to defend our honor. And with you, we get a nice young wizard who can cook too. How can we lose?"

Not knowing Megan enough to defend her - nor did he actually know the Weasleys here, so there was nothing to say on that front - Harry settled for nodding slowly before smirking at Daphne. "You sure you don't belong down in the dungeons with my cousins?"

"No thank you. Dank stone does nothing for my complexion." Daphne just grinned before slipping her arm through his. "And besides, you'll be the envy of boys in a few years. Three pretty girls for friends, and girls will be fighting for a chance to go out with someone with something close to proper manners." Well, Hermione probably wouldn't… but Harry decided to keep that thought to himself. She could out herself to the others when she was good and ready.

Entering the Great Hall and grabbing the last few seats at the Gryffindor table, the quartet settled in two to a side with Harry and Hermione serving as the buffer between their group and the rest of the table. After a moment's contemplation, Daphne took the seat on Hermione's side of the table while leaving the seat between them for Tracey and Su took up the seat to Harry's left at the end of the table, leaving a spot for Tara.

Place settings flashed into existence nearby as the hall's magic registered their presence, followed shortly by platters full of breakfast essentials, and Harry graciously allowed the girls to have first dibs before loading up his own plate and starting in on the most important meal of the day. An egg, some beans, and half a tomato later - Harry couldn't bring himself to touch the streaky rashers; he really had become spoiled while doing the shopping - breakfast was brought to an abrupt halt as an owl dive bombed the table, slamming into the bowl of fruit between Harry and Hermione and sending apples rolling down the table. While not quite Errol of the Weasleys - he'd yet to fly into a window or anything - he was getting on in years and was still kept quite busy. Lifting the poor owl free, Harry took the letter he carried before offering a piece of bacon. "Thanks, boy. Why don't you go find Albiona up in the owlery and rest for the day? I'll write something today and you can take it back home to mum tomorrow."

Silver Star hooted in relief and winged away, leaving Harry to return to his breakfast… and his first letter from home. Absently digging back into his scrambled eggs, Harry used his other hand to unroll the parchment so he could see what his mother - presumably; he couldn't see his father taking the time to sit down and write him anything - had to say.

_Dear Harry,_

_By now you've been sorted and - since the school hasn't flooed to tell us about a major fight in the dungeons - I'm going to go out on a limb and say you haven't been sorted into Slytherin. Ravenclaw? Gryffindor? You'll do fine in either, although if you end up in Ravenclaw, promise me you won't use your knowledge to get too far ahead. Your poor classmates will have breakdowns trying to show you up and that would just be mean of you._ _Sirius said to remember that you're the son of a Marauder and pull as many pranks as you can, starting as soon as possible. Anastasiya said he's going to be sleeping on their sofa for the next week. Keep that in mind before you try something. I want to hear nothing but good things about you from your teachers. Especially given your advantage._ _You know, I kept meaning to ask you why you were even bothering with Hogwarts, given your memories, but the time never seemed right. For some reason, though, I doubt you're there to cheat your way to the top of the class in Charms. Just promise me that you'll try not to get hurt doing whatever it is you're there to do._ _Enough of that, at least for now. Good luck with your first day of classes. And for the love of God, Merlin, and anyone else listening… watch yourself around Severus Snape. Dumbledore may trust him to teach you children, but I've known him since before I went to Hogwarts. He is a vile, hateful man and you should be on your guard around him at all times._

_Love,_ _Your Mother_

_PS: If you absolutely feel the need to prank someone, prank Snape._

_PPS: I didn't say that and you can't prove otherwise._

Harry was frowning as he finished reading the letter, but let out a quiet snort of laughter as the last two lines disappeared from the page. Not that he hadn't been planning to stay on his guard against Snape anyways… but to have his own mother warn him was disturbing. He'd been aware of the past between them in his old universe. Was it the same here? Was this how his mother had felt by the end of her time at Hogwarts? Or had something happened after to fan the flames of dislike into genuine hatred?

Albiona disrupted his thoughts as she swooped down, grabbing a piece of bacon before disappearing back up into the rafters. Harry blinked and shook his head. Cheeky owl. Percy bustled past, dropping four schedules in the middle of the table near them. It took Hermione, Harry, Su, and Daphne a few moments to sort out which schedule belonged to each of them… at which point they all laughed, realizing that at this point, they all shared the same schedule. Harry looked it over; pretty much the same as he remembered. Thrice-weekly Herbology classes with Professor Sprout, History of Magic on Mondays and Wednesdays, Astronomy late on Wednesdays, Transfiguration, Charms, and DADA on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and double Potions with the afternoon off on Fridays.

A flash of blonde in the corner of his eye drew Harry's attention over to the entrance of the Great Hall, where the first year Slytherins were arriving for breakfast in two distinct groups: Draco and his two bodyguards leading the way with Tara and the other six students in his year forming a tight cluster that trailed behind them. Whistling to get her attention, Harry beckoned for her to join them. She rolled her eyes but, after exchanging a few words with her peers, crossed the room to join them. "The food isn't as good as when I cook, but want to join us anyways?"

Tara raised an eyebrow at that but took him up on his offer, sliding into the seat between him and Su. "You do know Hogwarts employs the largest staff of house elves in England, right?" Harry nodded. "And you think you can do better? You really do take after your father, don't you?" Narrowing his eyes, Harry scooped some scrambled eggs off his plate and shoved them into her mouth. Tara glared back at him as she chewed slowly before making a face and swallowing. "…I'm not going to say it. You don't need any bigger of an ego."

"Aww. You know I'm your favorite second cousin once removed, Tara."

"You're my favorite cousin period and you know it. But only because Crabbe is a gorilla, Dora's a freak, and Aunt Anastasiya has made Cassie so bloody neurotic that she's impossible to get past polite conversation with. Although those delicious splits of yours might win you a few points if we discover some decent competition for you someday."

"Hmmph." The others were sniggering at the byplay and Harry decided to cut his losses before Tara managed to convince the rest of his friends it was Pick On Harry Day. Looking around the hall, he realized that Daphne had missed her sister's entrance and pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill, scribbling down a quick note before using a spell to fold it into an airplane and send it shooting across to the Ravenclaw table. Instead of landing neatly in front of her, though, it lodged in one of Tracey's pigtails just past the hair tie and Harry cringed. "Oops." 


	8. Chapter 8

8\. This Time Around

The first week of classes was fun, reminding Harry of the simple joy of magic back in his first year at Hogwarts. Mostly because… well, it was his first year. Again. As best he could tell - he hadn't wandered off in search of the third year and above elective teachers - all the same professors were here and acted the same. Well, Flitwick hadn't fallen off his stack of books in excitement the first time he called 'Harry Potter' in Charms… but he had done it a few seconds earlier for 'Neville Longbottom', which was close enough in Harry's book.

He'd been looking forward to a chance to finally one-up Hermione - which wasn't really fair, considering he had seven years of very advanced training on her - but found himself denied both in that class and Transfiguration, where she and Su had quickly paired off. Dean and Megan had done likewise, drawn together as friends by their shared muggle upbringing. That left him with Daphne, one of the Gaelic Girls, Anne, Neville, or the Boy-Who-Lived's lapdog, who also answered to the name Larry. Like Neville or Larry, the answer was a no brainer.

This time with a friend of equivalent intellect by her side, Hermione raced through the first lesson even more quickly than the first time, she and Su egging each other on in a competition to be the first with a properly transfigured matchstick. Under other circumstances, they would have come in first and second, earning Gryffindor ten points a piece for their work. Unfortunately for the two girls, they were competing against someone who had mastered the lesson seven years ago. With a haphazard flick of his wand, Harry turned his matchstick into a needle, earning him ten points and a comment about his father's prowess in the discipline.

Daphne was the only member of their quartet to struggle with the assignment and after watching her fail for the fifth time, Harry reached out and put his hand over hers. After seeing her blast Neville the night before, he knew she had power and control to manage something this simple. Even if she was unfamiliar with the spell in question - and he doubted whoever had tutored her before Hogwarts had skipped over transfiguration basics entirely - it still should have been no problem for her… assuming she was approaching it the right way. Rather than lecture her, though, the way Hermione was prone to when she knew something that someone else didn't, Harry asked her a simple question. "How did you manage a stunner so easily last night, Daphne?"

"Easy, I just focused on the idea of stunning Lardbottom for that look he gave me, harnessed the power, and funneled it through my wand to keep it from being wild magic. Come on, Harry, you're from a magical household. You should know something that sim…" Daphne abruptly trailed off and looked from Harry to the matchstick and back. Harry just smirked and raised an eyebrow. Turning her attention to her matchstick, Daphne waved her wand and said the incantation on the board, the slim shaft of wood warping and shifting into a perfect sewing needle. "Well I'll be. Thanks, Harry."

As much as he tried to be surprised, Harry couldn't even manage to fake it when neither Larry nor Neville managed to finish the assignment by the end of class. Each received a hefty homework assignment for their trouble, one he'd done himself the first time around. Heh. That'd keep them down in the library and away from him for a while. Victory was his… even though he really hadn't done anything.

In Charms, Su and Hermione again paired off to compete against each other, leaving Daphne and Harry together. Neither minded too terribly much, though, and after Harry once again stymied the dynamic duo's quest to be the first to perform the class's assignment - in this case, levitating a feather - he started tickling Daphne with his flying feather. Faster than she'd managed in Transfiguration, Daphne mastered the spell and almost poked his eye out as she whipped her feather shaft-first at him, a rather familiar smirk on her face as she let it drift away before dive-bombing him again.

Batting at the feather until he managed to pin it to the desk, Harry waited for Daphne to release her spell before relaxing and leaning in, nodding towards where Su and Hermione appeared to be having a dueling banjos moment going, the muggleborn repeatedly trying to outdo her Asian companion, only to have Su perfectly mimic her feather's movements each time. Somehow, her hair had survived a visit to the sixth and seventh year female prefects and she'd taken Su's advice that day, braiding the red sections and ending each with a gold bead. He found it rather fetching on her, or at least as fetching as he could find an eleven-year-old girl without feeling like a pedophile. "So, how long do you think it'll be before she goes to a professor to get her hair fixed?"

"Not sure. The question is, do you want to let it last that long?" Daphne's eyes flicked from Harry to Hermione and back. "If she does go to a professor, she might ask them to do more than fix it. Maybe, I don't know, see if they can figure out whose magic it is on her in the first place? And she may be new to magic, but she's a mean one. She'd probably start learning some nasty little spells just to get her revenge." Hmm. She had a point there. "You should have heard her swearing while she fussed with her hair this morning. Some of the things that come out of that girl's mouth… I've never heard such creative yet disturbing examples of profanity in my life. She's even worse than my father was that time he found out my mother had spent a quarter of the family's budgeted galleons for the year on new shoes."

Hmm. If this version of Daphne's family was equally as rich as the version from his universe… that was a whole lot of shoes. Harry looked down at his feet. He only had two of them: one left and one right. What did someone need that many shoes for?

Given that he'd never liked his fame, Harry had found the following day particularly amusing. So many others, Ron among them, had wanted to be him in his old world and so it was fun to step back and watch as someone else experienced what he lived with… even if it was just an evil dungeon-dwelling bat.

"Ah yes. Neville Longbottom. Our new… celebrity." Snape went through roll call before his dark eyes rose from the parchment, sweeping back over the class slowly. "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death… if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

There were snickers from the Slytherins, although Harry couldn't call either side of the room the 'Slytherin side'. Tara had decided to take Su's advice and pair with Harry, on the condition that the decently capable Su pair with the dismal Pansy to ensure her housemate didn't do too badly. That left Hermione and Daphne together, the rest of the Gryffindors and Slytherins scattered around the clump of interhouse cooperation in the middle of the room. Snape sneered as he looked back and forth between his goddaughter and the son of his school nemesis before whirling and turning his attention to… "Longbottom! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"I don't know, sir."

Sneer firmly in place, Snape clucked his tongue. "Tut tut, Longbottom. Fame clearly isn't everything. Let's try again, shall we? Longbottom, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Neville, looking as clueless as usual, gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know, sir."

"Decided not to open a book before coming to my class, eh, Longbottom?" Harry smirked; he, Hermione, Su, and Daphne had taken over a corner of the common room the night before with their copies of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ and _Magical Drafts and Potions_. Oddly enough, Hermione had barely touched either before that point, not finding magical horticulture or the brewing of potions to be particularly fascinating subjects, but all four were now passably informed in case Snape turned his attention their way. "What is the difference, Longbottom, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Neville sighed. "I don't know." Then the unfairness of his situation finally seemed to occur to him, and he glared at Snape. "Why are you picking on me? I bet nobody else in here could answer those questions either!"

After pondering his request for a moment, Snape grinned evilly at Neville. "Five points from Gryffindor for your insubordination, Longbottom, and another five for coming to class unprepared. But… very well. Let's see if one of your housemates can lose you even more points. Potter!" Harry looked up from the notes he'd been jotting down; he'd been expecting Snape to launch into a tirade ending with him demanding the answers he'd just given them be written down and had decided to get a head start. But if the Death Eater wanted to play… "Asphodel and wormwood. What happens when I combine them?"

Harry just smirked back at the potion master. Well, he had gotten permission from Lily, after all. He had the mother of all pranks in mind… he just had to get Snape in there too. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say… some sort of potion. Right?"

"Amusing. Asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death, Potter." Drawing closer, Snape loomed over Harry and Tara, staring down with malicious black eyes. "Perhaps you can tell me where a bezoar comes from, then, since you lack knowledge of basic potions?"

Pondering that for a moment, Harry shrugged and just kept smirking. "An apothecary?"

Titters of laughter greeted his flippant answer, at least until Snape looked up and his glare cowed the class. "Technically correct… once they have been harvested from the stomach of a goat. They can save you from most poisons, which is what makes them relevant in my domain. Neither potions nor the requisite equipment seems to be your forte… perhaps ingredients? Monkshood and wolfsbane. What's the difference, Potter?"

"Oh, I know this one. They're the same. It's also called aconite. According to my mother, if you dice it up really finely, it's a great way to add a little flavor to your tea. Potion masters in particular seem to enjoy it." Harry narrowed his eyes as he met Snape's gaze, wondering how far he'd have to push the man verbally to get him to lash out with legilimency. "Particularly _Aconitum ferox_." Oh yes, he would love to give this man another dose of _Aconitum ferox_ if he could manage to get away with it. Nothing beat a nice mug of elf-made hot cocoa, some biscuits, and watching your childhood tormentor vomit and then asphyxiate as his respiratory system failed…

The look on Snape's face made it very clear to Harry that the man knew exactly what he was implying, and given that he'd attributed the comment to his mother, it made him even more curious about how far things had fallen between the two former friends in this universe. Then the professor's eyes drifted down to Harry's book, widening as he took in the scribbles that filled the margins, all written in a looping script far too feminine to be his. "Mister Potter… would you care to tell me why your book has been defaced before your first class period?"

Harry looked down at his book and then smiled as his gaze met Snape's. If this didn't push him over the edge, nothing would. "They're my mum's. We had enough money for new ones, but I decided to bring hers with me instead. Now that I think about it, the whole thing makes me feel a bit like royalty. Knowledge is power and I'm inheriting power from my parents… it's almost like being a Prince, wouldn't you say?" Harry gave the professor a cheeky little wink, pushing the man over the edge and sending Snape crashing into his occlumency shields with the subtlety of a wounded dragon. Harry's grin widened. Showtime.

Mentally begging forgiveness from all the deities he could think of, Harry began to work quickly, pulling memories together to craft a fake image in his mind. The centerpiece was taken from one of his wilder sexual escapades with Luna: a ménage à trois with the Daphne of his world. It had come after a particularly rough battle and more drinking than was probably advisable, but thankfully they'd been able to laugh it off in the morning and remain friends without things being too awkward… although he was pretty sure he'd caught Luna staring at Daphne's chest once or twice in the days that followed when she thought nobody was looking.

Carefully selecting a portion where he was taking Luna from behind as the blonde buried her head between Daphne's legs and the Slytherin leaned her head back as she moaned loudly - which meant less work for him since there were no faces to change - Harry got to work altering the necessary visible details. A few times that summer Lily had bundled the family into the van and taken them the fifteen minutes south to the local beach, making it quite easy for Harry to twist Luna into Lily in his mind, substituting in his mother's hair color, current length and style, and adding the few birthmarks he'd seen when his mother wore a swimsuit to Luna's flawless skin. Daphne took a bit longer to work over and was based more on assumption than fact, but soon enough Harry had her looking like Narcissa… or hopefully close enough to Narcissa to fool Snape.

Somewhere between amused and utterly disturbed and repulsed by what he'd done, Harry pushed the image forward into a buffer zone and then let his shields flutter as Snape probed a nearby section. Taking the bait, Snape slammed all his strength into probing the 'weakened' area and after a moment, Harry let the outer layer of shielding fall to expose the fabricated memory. After a moment of hesitation, possibly suspecting a trap, Snape latched on… and then abruptly turned almost as green as his house's colors in the real world as he was treated to the incestuous - plus one - tableau. The connection broke abruptly as Snape stumbled back, wrenching his head to the side. "Fifty points from Gryffindor. The potion is on the board. Get to work." Protests broke out from both sides, the Slytherins unhappy with the lack of actual instruction and the Gryffindors complaining about both that and the point removal. "Now! Or I'll have you all serving a week's detentions with Filch!"

Harry smirked as he and Tara got to work. Game. Set. Match.

"It's been three days and he still won't stop glaring at you. Do I want to know what you did to my godfather back on the first day of Potions, Harry?"

"I don't know… you saw what it did to him. Do you want to know?" After thinking about that for a few, Tara shook her head and Harry chuckled before gesturing to the seat beside him. "Didn't think so. Anyways, what can I do for you? I know I said you can join my friends and I whenever you want but if you do it too much, Snape and the other Slytherins might start causing problems for you. Not to mention Draco."

Tara just waved her hand dismissively, circling around the library table and taking the seat beside Harry. "My mother knows most of the other Slytherins' mothers, and so if they really are stupid enough to start problems because I want to spend time with family, I'm sure they'll end up with a nasty letter from home about it. Draco… let me worry about Draco." There were two muffled thuds and then Harry looked down as something came to rest on his lap. A foot. Harry looked from it to Tara's face, raising an eyebrow, and she scoffed at him before nudging his thigh with her other foot. "Well, go on then."

As her other green and silver striped foot came to rest on his lap, Harry set down his quill. "You know, I never should have let you listen in when I talked to your mother about how much Luna loved my foot massages. Besides, you have it easy compared to the rest of us. If anyone has a right to complain about hurting feet, it's Hermione, Su, Daphne, or Tracey. Or me. We're the ones with dorms on the seventh floor."

"You do remember I'm a Malfoy, right? I don't walk places, I send Dobby there to get things for me. Any walking is too much walking in my book. I've been walking. It makes my feet hurt. Rub them." Tara's spoiled words made Harry roll his eyes but he reached down and began rubbing the sole of her foot. Mostly because he knew arguing was futile and the sooner she was satisfied, the sooner she'd leave him alone. Homework naturally came easily to him but it was still time consuming and the sooner he got his work finished, the more free time he'd have left that weekend. "Ahh. Much better."

As he slowly moved down from the ball of her foot to the arch, Harry shook his head. "If you think this is bad, wait until we start Astronomy. All the way up to the top of the one tower at Hogwarts that's taller than the one my dorm is in." Tara let out a groan; whether it was due to that or what he was doing to her feet, Harry wasn't sure, but he decided to keep up the teasing. "And since I don't see you taking Muggle Studies, look at your choices for third year electives. Care of Magical Creatures… out on the grounds. Divination? North Tower. Ancient Runes is up on the sixth floor and the classroom for Arithmancy isn't too far from Gryffindor Tower's portrait. No matter what, you're doing some hiking."

Tara pouted as she pondered the problem. "Hmm. I wonder if I can get away with signing up for your classes and just using you to bring my homework to me and deliver it the next class? Probably not, even if I am a Malfoy. Hmm. Well, I see only one solution to this problem." Leaning forward, she squeezed one of Harry's biceps. "I'll get you trained up by third year and then I can ride from class to class on your back."

"…I am not giving you piggyback rides around Hogwarts, Tara. Especially when you're thirteen."

"Aww. And here I thought I was your favorite second cousin once removed?"

"No, that's Dora. And if you try to turn me into your steed, Cassie might pass you too."

Four tables away, Hermione let her book drop back onto the table as she gave up on any pretense of studying and looked from Harry and Tara to her friends and back. "Am I the only one freaked out by the two of them? They're eleven. And they're cousins. I'm not sure which part of that is worse. Hmm. No, the more I think about it, the equally gross both parts seem."

Daphne spared a quick glance up from her essay for Professor Flitwick before shrugging and returning to her writing. "I don't see the problem. Or what age has to do with anything, Miss 'Chicks Dig Scars'." Hermione narrowed her eyes at Daphne for that one. She'd told her new friends about her preferences because she'd wanted to get the freaking out and ditching done with now, rather than a few years down the road after she'd become emotionally invested in the three. Surprisingly, all three had been accepting enough and Su had even joked that she'd keep an eye on Hermione to make sure she didn't make a fool of herself around their peers once she matured to the point that she actually started looking for a girlfriend. "Harry's mature for his age, we all know that. It's odd. That doesn't change that he's mature. We like it, remember? It's why we spend time with him? So if he did become the first boy in our year to get a girlfriend, it really wouldn't surprise me. Now, not that I think there's anything going on between them, but even if there was? It's not like their parents are siblings, Hermione. They're second cousins once removed; you have to go all the way back to Cygnus Black to find where their trees meet. And don't even look at me like that, you know I know these things."

"Whatever. If you can name how close someone is on your family tree, they're too close, Daphne. And I'm sticking to that." Hermione stared at the quietly talking pair for a long moment before looking away. She knew it wasn't jealousy; even at her age she had a defined enough set of aesthetic preferences and Tara definitely didn't fit them. Neither did anyone of the opposite gender, which eliminated both halves of the pair. So why did they bother her so? Maybe Daphne was the weird one and Su or Tracey would vindicate her? "Tracey? Su? Help me out here?"

Peering up from a Potions essay, Tracey shook her head rapidly. "Leave me out of this. Besides, what makes you think I know anything about normal families or relationships?" Touché.

Su wasn't any more helpful. "You're really making something out of nothing, Hermione. Like Daphne said, if there was something going on - and I'm with her, I think they're just close because he's known her longer than anyone here at Hogwarts - it wouldn't be that weird. There are a lot fewer wizards and witches than muggles. Of course family trees overlap more than muggles' do."

"Thanks, Su."

"Welcome. And it could be worse. At least they're not as weird as those Carrow twins from the next year up. They walk around holding hands."

All three girls let out squeals of disgust… and were promptly shushed by Madam Pince.

His second week of school brought something Harry had been dreading: flying lessons. Not that he was afraid of flying, far from it. But evidently this Neville Longbottom had more in common with Harry's prior self than just the scar: he too wanted to be seeker for the Gryffindor team, although he saw it and the bending of the 'no brooms for first years' rule to be his right as the Boy-Who-Lived rather than a privilege. Arrogant brat.

It left Harry with a bit of a dilemma, though. What did he do if the Remembrall situation - or something close enough - came up again? Did he let Neville take care of it, securing the boy a position on the Gryffindor team? Well, assuming he actually had any skill, which Harry doubted. If he did let Neville go and he failed, not only would the Boy-Who-Lived not be on the team but then neither would he, at least until second year. But if he did allow the events of his old universe to replay themselves completely, he'd end up standing out even more and breed further resentment from Neville's corner in the process.

Choices choices.

Su and Daphne were both old hands on brooms by this point, having come from pureblood families, while Hermione was again a bit nervous. At least she wasn't terrified of heights or flying in this universe. As best Harry could tell she was just nervous she'd be horrible at flying, and that was primarily because she wanted to play quidditch later in her Hogwarts career. Hopefully she'd be at least a passable flier, though; even if it turned out she was unsuitable for quidditch, it would be nice to have her able to join him on the pitch in her spare time instead of nagging him about revising the way her old self had.

After lunch that day, the Gryffindors and Slytherins made their way out onto the grounds for their first - and only, Harry mused, unless the others had been given further classes he'd been exempt from - flying lesson. As disgruntled as the girls had seemed before with the girls' charmed skirts, Daphne and Anne certainly seemed jealous of the trousers Hermione and Megan were sporting for the lesson. There were two rows of ten brooms lying on the grass when they arrived and without a thought, the two houses moved to stand facing each other with the brooms in between. Again, Harry found himself standing next to Hermione to form the buffer zone between the sexes on the Gryffindor side, with Blaise and Tara doing the same for their house.

There were actually only eleven Gryffindors on the field for the first few minutes, the twelfth only appearing as he stumbled along at the heels of the arriving Madam Hooch. "For the last time, Longbottom, I have nothing to do with the house's quidditch teams. I am merely the referee for the school's matches. If you are willing to attend try-outs on a school broom and are selected by Mister Wood, then perhaps you'll be allowed to have a broom sent from home but that's not my decision." Huffing, she stopped at one end of the brooms, forcing Neville to run all the way down to the other to take up a spot next to Larry. Her yellow, hawk-like eyes raked back and forth over them a few times and then she nodded. "Right then. I assume everyone is in a spot where they can hold their dominant hand out over a broom? Which means right-handed flyers to the left of the broom and vice versa. Is anybody in the wrong position?" There was a chorus of vaguely negative replies and Hooch gave a sharp nod. "Now hold your hand out over the broom and say 'Up!'."

"Up!"

A few brooms rolled over and twitched. Neville got a rude shock as his flew up to hit him in the face before dropping to the grass again, making him stumble back and fall on his ass. All of the Slytherin boys and most of the girls got theirs off the ground on the first try, Tara included, while Bulstrode's broom appeared to be trying to burrow underground to get away from her. Harry reflexively closed his fingers around the shaft of his broom as it jumped to his hand, letting out a sigh of relief as his friends managed it just as easily.

Mounting their brooms, the students waited while Hooch patrolled up and down the two rows, checking their grips and where they were positioned on the broom. "Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground. Decently hard, mind you, the charms on the broom take a second or two to kick in and if you don't get high enough you'll be smacking your shins into the ground instead of flying. Once you are in the air, keep your broom steady until you're confident. Lean back and rise a few feet, then lean forward and point the nose down to descend again to the ground. Slowly. On my whistle… three… two… one…"

Harry kicked off, easily leveling off into a hover and looking over at Hermione and the girls. Su and Daphne followed suit and then came the moment of truth: Hermione. He was worried over nothing, though; his muggleborn friend made the transition from ground to air as smoothly as Su and Daphne. "Huh. That's it? This… this is too easy." Hermione grinned and rose a few feet before tipping to one side, rolling her broom a full three hundred and sixty degrees before straightening up. Leaning forward, she descended until her feet touched the ground again and looked around. "Now what?"

Before Madam Hooch could issue new instructions to the class, shouting broke out from the boys' end of the line, coming from both sides. Harry sighed as he watched Neville and Draco shout at each other at ever-increasing volumes, eventually culminating with the hovering Draco rocketing forward and knocking Neville off his broom. Even though they weren't too far off the ground, Neville evidently landed just wrong and Harry winced as he heard a sickening crack that heralded at least one broken bone.

Déjà vu…

"Longbottom! Malfoy! Ten points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin for your inane posturing and another five from Slytherin, Malfoy, for your attack on Longbottom. I want everyone's feet on the ground right this minute." Hooch stomped over to where Neville was curled in a whimpering ball on the grass. Leaning down, she pulled his arm away from his chest and waved her wand over it. "As I suspected. Broken wrist." Standing again, she glared at the rest of the class. "I need to bring Longbottom to the hospital wing. If I see any of you back in the air, you will regret it. Especially you, Malfoy."

Everyone in the class nodded their assent but, true to form, as soon as Hooch and Neville were out of sight, Draco dashed forward to scoop up a certain familiar Remembrall and began playing with it. Evidently Neville had problems remembering the lessons he'd gotten early thanks to his Ministry blah blah blah. Hmm. Neville was out of the way and Draco seemed intent on giving him the same chance all over again. Coincidence or providence? Did he risk things might turn out differently here or did he go for it? Harry debated with himself for a moment but in the end, he couldn't resist the urge. "Hand over the Remembrall, Malfoy."

Looking him up and down, Draco thought about it for a moment before sneering and shaking his head. "No, I don't think I will, Potter. Maybe I'll leave it up a tree for him to find. See if the fat braggart can actually manage to get up there and fetch it or if he's completely worthless on a broom."

Draco lifted off the ground again, Remembrall in hand, and Harry waved off the protests of his friends as he mounted his broom and gave pursuit. As Draco leveled off, evidently not trusting the rickety school broom to take him much higher, Harry zoomed around behind him and started circling the blonde slowly. "Just you, me, and the sky, Malfoy. You sure you want to do this?" Draco eyed him uncertainly and Harry lifted his hands from his broomstick as he continued to circle, shrugging off his flapping robes and let them flutter to the ground beneath them. "Falling those few feet broke Neville's wrist. What do you think might happen if I ram you off your broom from this high up? Now give… it… up…"

"Fine. You think you're so great, Potter?" Sneering, Draco drew his arm back and hurled the glowing red Remembrall towards the school, where the upward slopping ground would ensure he'd run out of time to catch it faster. Harry hadn't thought Draco that clever. Or maybe he wasn't and Harry was just giving him too much credit. Either way, there was a ball that needed catching and he was just the person for the job.

Wheeling around, Harry dove after the ball, pushing the battered school broom to top speed as he pursued his target. He knew he couldn't catch it too early, though; it had to be spectacular, now that he'd committed to this course of action. If it wasn't, he'd just earn punishment for defying Madam Hooch's instructions and not the seeker position. Finally, two feet above the ground, he wrapped his fingers around the Remembrall and pulled up. His toes brushed gently over the grass, leaving two ruffled paths behind him as he came to a complete stop.

Wait for it.

Wait for it…

"Harry Potter!" Ah, there was an angry Professor McGonagall, right on time. "Never, in all my time at Hogwarts… how dare you… might have broken your neck and how would I have explained that to your parents… not even James pulled something that stupid in his youth…" Composing herself with visible effort, she waited until he dismounted from the broom, taking it from him and shoving it into the approaching Hermione's hands. "Potter. Follow me. Now."

Hermione, Su, Daphne, and even Larry and Neville's other followers looked ready to protest until Harry silenced them with a shake of his head. Tossing the Remembrall to Anne, who he'd seen with Neville's group lately, Harry obediently followed behind his head of house, having to jog to keep up with her impatient, long-legged strides. It was hard to summon anything approaching the same sense of dread he'd felt last time around, though, seeing as how he had a pretty good idea how this was going to play out. Still, he did his best to at least look nervous so McGonagall wouldn't get suspicious, skidding to a stop behind her as she came to a halt at the Charms classroom. "Professor Flitwick? Might I borrow Wood for a moment?"

A too mature yet partially immature portion of his brain wanted to comment on how utterly dirty that sounded, but Harry managed to keep his mouth shut. Plastering on a look of confusion, Harry followed along as McGonagall led him and his future captain down the hall and into an empty classroom. Oliver was the first to speak up. "Erm, Professor? What's going on? Charms isn't exactly my strongest subject and this is my OWL year…"

McGonagall waved off his protests and then proceeded to make introductions. "Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood… I've found you a seeker."

Suddenly, Oliver's scholastic concerns melted away in the face of quidditch talk. "Are you serious, Professor?"

"No, she's Professor McGonagall. Sirius is my godfather."

After a moment of silence, McGonagall sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I had hoped I'd never hear that pathetic joke again after Mister Black graduated. He has a daughter starting here next year too, doesn't he?" Harry nodded and McGonagall gave an outright groan at that. "Wonderful. But yes, Wood, he's a natural. Caught a falling Remembrall on a school broom with only a foot or two to spare. I doubt Charlie Weasley could have pulled off a move like that."

Oliver looked ecstatic, walking in a slow circle around Harry. "He's just the right build for a seeker, too. Light… speedy… Potter, you have a decent broom at home you can send for, right?" Harry nodded but looked over at his head of house, raising an eyebrow. "Err, assuming we can get that pesky first year broom ban lifted for him, Professor?"

"I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend that first year rule, yes. Heaven knows we need a better team than last year. As good as Weasley was… flattened in that horrible match against Slytherin. I couldn't look Severus in the face for weeks…" McGonagall trailed off before turning and peering sternly over the top of her glasses at Harry. "I want to hear that you're training hard, Potter, or I may punish you for today's incident after all. Understand?"

Harry nodded, then something occurred to him and he bit his lip. It would be pushing his luck… but it was just so bloody brilliant, he couldn't help himself. "Professor? Could you ask about getting the broom rule lifted for Hermione Granger as well?" McGonagall gave him an odd look and Harry turned to Oliver. "Unless you have a brother who's also on the team, I'm assuming you're the Wood who plays keeper for Gryffindor? Which would make you the Wood that my cousin Dora mentioned in a letter home a few years ago, who took a bludger to the head during his first game and then spent the next week in the hospital wing?"

"Err, I suppose?"

Turning back to the professor, Harry continued to weave his web. "I bet Gryffindor lost that game, right? I mean, without a keeper, the other team could run up sixteen goals in no time and then let Gryffindor catch the snitch and it wouldn't matter." McGonagall nodded slowly. "Now… is there a rule in place that keeps the house teams from having reserve players for if someone is too sick to play or gets injured during the game?" She shook her head; Harry had already known the answer but had asked anyway just for appearances. "Hermione plays goalkeeper for her field hockey team back in the muggle world; you had to repair her leg when you visited from what she told me. It's a sport where they try to get a fist-sized ball past her into a net. And it's moving a lot faster than a quaffle. Can you think of anyone more perfect to be Gryffindor's reserve keeper for if Wood gets hurt again? And when he graduates, Hermione can take over as keeper so we won't have to go through a new captain and a new keeper at the same time. The team will be used to Hermione already."

McGonagall's jaw dropped for a moment before she composed herself. "That… is startlingly brilliant, Potter. You look so much like your father that sometimes I forget you seem to have inherited your mother's intelligence. Five points to Gryffindor for… something logic-related; I can't think of a good way to phrase it right now." That earned her shocked looks from the two students and she shrugged before offering a small smile that looked odd on their normally stern head of house. "You act as if I'm unaware of Professor Snape's tendencies. If he can take points away for little to no reason, I can award them for the same. Now run along. I'll let you know about Miss Granger's situation as soon as I talk to the headmaster."

While Oliver returned to class and McGonagall left, presumably to talk to Dumbledore, Harry remained in the room and watched from the window as the class continued to learn basic flying technique from Madam Hooch. Hermione really wasn't half bad for someone who'd never touched a broom before. Certainly not the prodigy he was, but… hell, probably better than Ron. Turning her into a keeper wouldn't be that hard.

Hopefully.

After the bell tolled to indicate the current class period was over, Harry grabbed his bag and made his way out of the abandoned classroom. Heading for the ground floor, he instinctively scowled at the sight of Draco walking with goons, the trio laughing at something as they made their way into the Entrance Hall. Probably because they were under the mistaken impression that he was being punished at the moment, perhaps even expelled. It was tempting, oh so tempting, to hex the little shit just on general principle. Would anyone actually miss him if he was stuck in the hospital wing for a day or seven? Then again, if Draco hadn't pulled his stupid stunt, Harry wouldn't have regained his status as youngest seeker in a century here in this new world… so he couldn't really complain, now could he? Not to mention that Narcissa might take exception to him hexing her offspring, even if she wasn't greatly attached to Draco.

Walking closely behind the trio of Slytherins came Su, Daphne, and Hermione, talking loudly about what had happened during their flying lesson. As they spotted their wayward friend, they broke into a run - or, in Daphne case, a fast yet refined walk - towards him, Hermione accidentally bumping against Draco as she passed. "Oy! Mudblood! Watch where you're going!"

Su and Daphne kept moving but Hermione came to an abrupt stop and Harry let a wide grin stretch over his features, knowing what was about to happen. As much as he should be the mature one in his group of friends, being older by six years… there was something infinitely satisfying about watching immature, egotistical little purebloods get beaten up. Especially by a girl. Even more so when that girl was someone who was supposedly their lesser. Dropping her book bag with a loud thump, Hermione slowly turned to face the Slytherin. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me, mudblood." Far braver now that he was back on the ground - and away from Harry - Draco made a show out of brushing off the spot where Hermione had brushed against him. "I don't need you getting your filthy mudblood germs on my robes. Who knows what I might catch from you?"

Hermione stomped forward, hands curling into fists. Somehow Harry doubted that Draco had yet to hear about Hermione's antics on the Hogwarts Express; perhaps he was dismissing the danger because she had inflicted pain on Neville the muggle way? He knew from experience, though, that having your bones broken by brute force was just as painful as by magic. Stopping in front of the arrogant pureblood, Hermione held up her left hand and extended her index finger. "Call me a mudblood… one more time."

Leaning in, Draco grinned widely. "Mudblo…"

He didn't get to finish.

Hermione extended her middle finger to give Draco the two-fingered salute before her right hand came up and drove itself into his nose with a sickening crunch. Stumbling back with a cry, the blonde tripped over the hem of his robes and fell flat on his arse, staring up at Hermione in fear. "God. You purebloods are supposed to be sophisticated. Learn some bloody fucking manners." Turning away, she scooped up her bag and marched over to Harry. Pausing in front of him, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "What?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you have anger management issues, Hermione?"

"Yes. Now tell us what happened to you when McGonagall took you away before I punch you."

"Just checking." Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Harry pulled her down the hall as Su and Daphne fell in behind them. "As for our lovely deputy headmistress… let me tell you the tale of a poor little half-blood and his angry head of house…" 


	9. Chapter 9

9\. The Dawn of a New Era

For the Sorting Hat, day-to-day life was generally rather peaceful. Apart from the one time a year when he had to sit on students' heads and determine which house they were best suited for, his days were filled with the quiet solitude of the headmaster's office. Every now and then though, the headmaster received a visitor or two that disturbed the Hat's peace and quiet… such as was occurring at the moment.

"I demand you do something about Potter, Albus! One of his friends just assaulted a member of my house, and the things I've seen in his mind…" Severus Snape trailed off, shivering violently. "He's a disturbed, deviant spawn of the devil and I want him out of this school before he corrupts my goddaughter irrevocably. I already dread the next time I'll be facing Lord and Lady Malfoy. Particularly the latter…"

Before the headmaster could respond, Minerva McGonagall rounded on the sallow, hook-nosed professor with eyes flashing. "What you've 'seen in his mind', Severus? Perhaps we should be starting this discussion with an explanation as to why you're using legilimency on my students, and then we can move on to whatever complaints you have with members of my house?"

Holding up one hand, Albus Dumbledore waited for the two to turn their attention to him. "Minerva, you know that Severus has my complete trust. I have authorized him to use any and every method at his disposal to ensure the safety of Hogwarts, especially given what we've hidden in the bowels of the school this year, and that includes legilimency. Now Severus, I know you had your problems with both James Potter and Lily Evans when the three of you were in school together… are you certain that your past is not clouding your view of the present?"

"Yes. Despite your authorization, I don't make a habit out of invading the minds of my students, for Minerva's information. But I felt it warranted after Potter made a pair of rather… unsettling… comments to me in front of the class." Both Dumbledore and McGonagall gave him their full attention, which caused Snape to pause and fidget uncomfortably. "When I dove into his mind, I found that it was in fact shielded… strange but, given who his mother is, not inexplicable. With minor effort, I was able to breach them and the first thing I encountered was… something that disturbed me greatly. I extracted the memory at my first convenience and have spent a week studying it but…"

Dumbledore leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk as he waited for the explanation. "Yes, my boy?"

Visibly uncomfortable, Snape stalled for a few more seconds before sighing. "It was a memory of him partaking in a sexual encounter. No, he didn't walk in on one. It was from his perspective. It was with not one but two partners, and one had a very familiar shade of red hair. The other had black hair."

McGonagall gasped and leaned back in her chair, eyes bouncing from to Snape to Dumbledore several times. "You can't be suggesting what I think you are, Severus. Harry Potter, sexually abusing… I assume you're referring to one of his sisters when it comes to red hair and perhaps one of her friends for the other girl? I simply don't believe it. I refuse to believe such a thing could happen right under Lily's nose, what with her staying home to raise her children…"

"And if that was the case, that would be a very interesting question that would need answer. But you are jumping to an incorrect - albeit understandable - conclusion. Tell me, Minerva, do you remember where Lily hails from originally?" McGonagall shook her head and Snape sighed, slouching back in his chair. "Cokeworth, within walking distance of my parents' house. I grew up with her and, as you may or may not remember, we were good friends up until fifth year. While I can't say I knew intimately in the sense that James Potter does, I was very familiar with her body… we used to go swimming and such when school was out and muggle swimming outfits are quite scandalous compared to what the wizarding world finds acceptable. No, I didn't just recognize the hair, I recognized the person." Hands clenching at the arms of his chair, Snape scowled. "Harry Potter is not sexually abusing his younger sisters. Harry Potter is in an Oedipal relationship with his own mother. And the third participant in their unnatural liaisons is Narcissa Malfoy."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Dumbledore began laughing loudly. "Oh, Severus, I didn't know you had a sense of humor. I haven't had someone trick me so completely since the Weasley twins last semester." He slowly began to trail off as Snape failed to crack a smile. "You are joking, aren't you, Severus?" The potion master shook his head. "Sweet Merlin."

As much as it wanted to, the Sorting Hat couldn't keep silent any longer and burst out laughing, drawing all attention to itself. "Oh Severus, you foolish little man. The Potter boy has shields the like of which you wish you could develop. I felt them when we conversed; he had to voluntarily lower than and start the conversation with me before I could sort him. Me, an artifact created by the Founders themselves. Do you really think you of all people have the power to break through shields that I could not? You saw nothing more than what he wanted to show you."

Hopeful blue eyes turned to the hat. "Truly?" Dumbledore rose from his seat, rounding the desk and approaching the Sorting Hat's perch. "Are you certain that whatever Severus saw was a deliberate distraction?"

"As certain as I can be without trying to penetrate Potter's mind myself to ascertain the truth. I have no doubt that if he'd chosen to, he could have forced me to sort him into whatever house he wanted by preparing a mind that would show me just what I was supposed to see. The boy possesses uncanny natural ability in the mental arts." Actually, they were abilities honed with great practice and care, brought over when the seventeen-year-old was stuffed into a younger body in this universe, but the enchantments that forced him to keep the students' secrets prevented him from saying as much. The outright lie about being able to affect the sorting… well, a bit of embellishment never hurt anything. "Suffice it to say, Severus, that Potter probably knew of your unrequited interest in Lily from discussions with her. Therefore, when you decided to invade his mind, he conjured up a mental image that would both disturb you enough to break the connection and remind you of what you lost. Almost makes me think the boy should have been in Slytherin…"

"And his inclusion of Lady Malfoy?"

The Sorting Hat snorted. "And this is why neither you nor Minerva were considered for Slytherin, and Severus made his way there on his ambition alone. He was under mental assault by the godfather of a friend of his. A position that denotes both responsibility to that friend… and a connection to her family. Why not choose the mother of his goddaughter? The wife of his close friend? What's that phrase I've heard the commentators use when you listen to quidditch on the wireless in here, Albus? Adding insult to injury?"

Letting out a long sigh of relief, Dumbledore wandered back over to sit in his plush chair. "You see, my boy? It was just a prank, albeit a tasteless one that shows a level of maturity most boys his age lack. I dare say that young Mister Potter takes after his father in more than just looks, hmm? Perhaps in the future, though, you should stay out of his mind just to avoid any further… misunderstandings." Snape scowled but nodded sharply in assent. "Now, Minerva, what did you want to see me about?"

McGonagall eyed Snape for a moment, clearly not thrilled about letting the subject drop, before turning her attention to the headmaster. "I need an exemption from the first year broom ban for two of my students: Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. They're going to be Gryffindor's reserve keeper and starting seeker, respectively, and it would keep me from needing to do something ridiculous. Such as, say, purchasing two Nimbus 2001s for my own use and just happening to loan them out to Granger and Potter regularly."

"Oh yes, what a brilliant idea. Let's reward the students who disobey their instructors and assault fellow students." Snape lurched up out of his chair and stomped toward the door. "No wonder your house is full of a bunch of little terrors."

Leaning in her seat, McGonagall called back over her shoulder. "Perhaps if your students could manage to walk the halls without starting fights, my students would walk the halls without ending them. Quid pro quo, Severus." The black-clad man paused for a moment before exiting the headmaster's office, slamming the door behind him. McGonagall returned her attention to the man who actually mattered in the situation. "Well, Albus? You know you want to see what happens when the first muggleborn player in the history of the school takes the pitch."

Grinning, Dumbledore stroked his beard slowly. "It does have the potential to be rather amusing, yes. And I doubt lack of official permission would stop a Potter from bringing a broom onto the grounds now that he's on the team. Very well. Have young Mister Potter write home to ask that his broom be sent to the school. As for Miss Granger, owl Quality Quidditch Supplies for a Nimbus 2001. Have them charge it to my vault."

That brought the conversation to an end and McGonagall rushed from the headmaster's office to deliver her good news. As soon as she was gone, the Sorting Hat chuckled. "You do know that you're going to have to wear me to the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game this year, right?"

"Yes, of course. I might even give all the house elves some time off so they can watch. It promises to be an interesting game. Why?"

"Good. Corner the Weasley twins one day this week and tell them I want to put ten galleons on a Slytherin getting hospitalized if Wood gets knocked out and Granger goes in."

"That, my friend, is what I believe the children call a 'sucker bet'. Besides, what would you do with ten galleons?"

"…bribe one of the house elves to clean me? Honestly, Albus, have you seen me lately? And I think that Longbottom whelp had lice…"

_Yawning and stretching languorously, Harry put his feet up on the seat across from him and stared out the window of his compartment as his fellow students and their parents bustled up and down Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Lily and Narcissa had come and gone, dropping off the five of them and departing before the Ministry's 'crack' auror team had even arrived to provide platform security. Not that Harry could blame his mother. She and her ex-husband got on like oil and water now that they no longer had to maintain a pleasant façade for the children and the last thing she needed was to end up as the target of another Rita Skeeter article for causing a scene at King's Cross. The door to his compartment slid open and four familiar heads peeked in, pulling him from his thoughts and making Harry grin. "Good morning, Angels."_

_"Good morning, Harry!"_

_Chuckling at his friends' now familiar antics, Harry flicked his wand and used a pair of Expansion Charms to stretch the compartment out until it was large enough to accommodate ten instead of the normal six. Su was the first to enter the compartment, spinning to sling her travel bag up into the overhead rack and smacking Harry across the face with her hair. As he sputtered and tried to get a few strands out of his mouth, she placed Maau Tau Jing's cage next to her bag and then claimed the spot on his left. Harry raised an eyebrow at her actions - especially after a greeting like that - but Su just grinned in reply. "What? It's fun watching the missus get cranky that someone's in 'her' spot. Both of them do, come to think of it. You've got two very possessive ball and chains. Balls and chain? Balls and chains? Still don't know what the proper plural of that is…"_

_Harry just rolled his eyes at that, watching as Hermione stuffed her own carry-on into the overhead rack, cooing at Crookshanks for a few seconds before putting his cat carrier up next to her bag. And then he bit back a cry as she kicked the side of his leg hard, knocking his feet off the bench to make room for her. Ow. Bloody girl still couldn't just ask politely. Hermione lowered herself into the seat across from him, clearing the way for the last two Angels. Tracey was first, shooting Su an amused look before taking the seat on Harry's other side. Last came Daphne, once again displaying the bizarre filial obedience that had sprung up because of her half-sister's relationship with him as she stowed Tracey's bag for her before taking care of her own. When that was done, she turned back to Harry and bowed at the waist. "God morgen, min herre."_

_If he didn't already have a number of titles to his name, being referred to as 'my lord' might have actually freaked Harry out. As it was… "God morgen, min datter." He gestured to the spot between Tracey and the window and Daphne curtseyed before seating herself, turning her attention to the bustling crowd on the platform as she searched for the absolute last person Harry wanted to see on any given day. His eyes drifted down to her left arm, bared by the brown leather vest she was wearing, and he smirked. It was remarkable how… Hermione-esque… the formerly anemic girl had become in the last few years. It was by and far a change for the better, but still amazing to behold. Speaking of physical changes over the years, though… Harry eyed the girl sitting beside him. Well, there were a few changes in Tracey's case, but few that he could comment on in polite company. "So… I like what you did with your hair. It's very… different."_

_"Wow. You mean you still remember I have a head? What's next, you actually managing to look me in the eye when we talk? Two points to Gryffindor for attempted subtlety, ten points from Gryffindor for being so horrible at it." Tracey's words were softened by her teasing tone and smirk, not to mention the fact that Harry knew she enjoyed the attention. At least she enjoyed his attention; other boys who made a habit of staring tended to have problems walking down the hall without tripping over non-existent objects. Reaching up, Tracey ruffled her now two-toned blonde and mahogany locks before letting her hand slide down, nudging the neckline of her black t-shirt to one side so she could tug gently on the Ravenclaw blue strap of her bra. "But yes, something's new this year. Or improved, at least. Sixth year is being brought to you by the number thirty-six and the letter E."_

_Harry and Hermione's jaws both dropped at that but it was Hermione who managed a response first. "…you just violated one of my favorite childhood memories. Dirty _Sesame Street _jokes, Tracey? Are you fucking serious?"_

_"I dare say Anastasiya Black would have a problem with that…" Laughing even as Hermione groaned at the deliberate misinterpretation of her question, Harry looked over to find the leader of his group's younger year standing in the compartment's doorway, a smirk tugging at her lips. Even now, after almost five years in her presence, Harry was still amazed by how different this version of Luna looked. It wasn't any one minor thing, either; she joined Daphne, Tracey, and - to a lesser degree - Hermione and Su in being one of those people who just plain looked different in this world. For one, she was a giant in this world. Well, half-giant technically, but he'd been thinking more in the colloquial meaning of the phrase… a very tall person. She'd towered over him by nearly eight inches when they first met and while time had narrowed that gap, she was still a bit over two inches taller than him and still growing. Thankfully her gene pool hadn't left her with Olympe Maxime's - or, Merlin forbid, Hagrid's - figure; instead, everything was simply scaled up proportionally for a body that was nearly a foot taller than 'his' Luna. Most of her hair pulled back to reveal the pointed ears that carried over even into her human form, Luna toyed with one of the bangs that hung loose and framed her face for a moment, looking around the compartment before deciding on a seat and taking a step towards the window. Harry's hand shot out, bringing her to a halt as he touched her knee. She looked down curiously and he responded with a raised eyebrow as he tugged at her Gryffindor red and gold candy cane tights. "Hmm?"_

_"Aren't you in the wrong house for Gryffindor pride, Luna?"_

_"What can I say? Sometimes, something other than blue is a nice change of pace."_

_Cute. Harry pulled his hand back, letting Luna proceed over to take the seat on Hermione's side of the compartment against the window, before turning his attention to the girl Luna had arrived with. Doing his best to imitate her Scottish accent, he waved the Hufflepuff in. "Aw'right, Lara?"_

_"Oye, you really need to stop doing that, Harry. You sound ridiculous." Harry offered Lara a two-fingered salute for that comment, narrowly dodging her retaliatory kick as she entered the compartment. What was it with him and physically abusive girls? Shaking his head, Harry gave Lara a quick once-over, shaking his head in amusement at her newest attempt to deal with her piebaldism. Her trademark white streak was finally gone, split in half and framing her face in a style superficially similar to Luna's, with the left streak dyed purple and the right streak gold. He'd heard her muttering about laser surgery towards the end of last year and indeed, the lenses held in place by her purple plastic frames this year seemed thinner than the ones he'd seen her wearing in the past, spelling the end of the bug-eyed look she'd previously shared with Trelawney. And Lara being Lara, the outfit wasn't complete without one of her seemingly endless supply of purple and gold Pride of Portree shirts. The young Scot took up a spot on Hermione's side of the compartment opposite of Luna, leaning up against the glass and peering out into the hall. "So, where are the twins? Any of them, for that matter?"_

_Harry furrowed his brow, a bit surprised - at least now that she'd mentioned it - that the expanded compartment was as empty as it was. Normally they'd be turning people away by now. "The Malfoys… not sure. We got dropped off together but even Tara wanted to split up for a bit. Say hello to their dormmates and other friends before they settle in with us for the ride. Flora and Hestia, probably off scaring younger students. Ellen, tagging along behind Siobhan while she does her social butterfly thing. My sisters… well, Hermione's here. You know they'll pop up eventually."_

_Chuckling, Hermione pointed to her right, drawing Harry's attention to where his younger sisters were standing in the doorway. Jasmine was in the front, Albiona's cage in hand and her shorter hair brushing against her chin as she looked around, Rose waiting patiently behind her and playing with the end of her butt-length braid. "Or they could pop up now." Entering first, Jasmine received a quick peck on the lips from Hermione and then stored her owl's cage before taking the seat between Hermione and Luna. Even though it wasn't the first time he'd seen it, Harry again found himself feeling the tiniest bit of empathy for how Ron must have felt: even if Hermione was his friend and a certified Good Person, seeing his little sibling with anyone romantically was… ugh. Then Hermione kissed Rose as the girl seated herself to Hermione's right and his jaw dropped. Hadn't they promised to… right, he had no room to talk. Not even going to go there. "So..?"_

_"A new piercing in each ear, two more in my eyebrow…" Jasmine trailed off, only to giggle at Hermione's pout. "…and I got my tongue pierced. Dad's trying to suck up to us so he can be The Cool Parent and I figured I'd milk it for all it's worth. He wasn't thrilled about another trip to Metal Morphosis, but Rose wanted to go to the Apple Store again and Persephone's in Diagon Alley still doesn't do anything beyond earlobes. You know, I still haven't figured out what I want to do when I graduate. Maybe I can open my own tattoo and piercing parlor to give her some competition. Hire Rose to do the books, pick up Dean to design tattoos… don't know any tattoo artists but I bet the Carrows would fall over themselves to get in on something that lets them cause pain for a living…"_

_Harry couldn't really disagree with that, although working at a certain establishment down Knockturn Alley would earn them far more money for far less effort… and he was not going to vocalize that thought because he had no desire to get into a discussion about BDSM with his sisters. Conversation stalled momentarily, making the sound of the door opening once more sound ridiculously loud. Harry looked over and found himself caught between smiling and grimacing; while Tara was tied with Tracey at the top of people he enjoyed spending time with… Draco was tied with Neville at the bottom. Oh well. He had a responsibility to keep the ferret out of trouble these days, and keeping him on a short leash was infinitely easier than doing damage control. "Miss me already, Draco?"_

_Sneering, Draco followed his sister into the compartment. "Hardly. No, it seems that Mother's decision to shack up with a mud…gleborn and her muggle-lover wunderkind has destroyed what little respect I still commanded. Since I'd like to make it to Hogwarts without getting beaten, cursed, or both, I decided that… discretion was the better part of valor." Frowning, Draco watched as Tara none-too-gently displaced Su and took the Chinese witch's spot at Harry's left hand. "Although we seem to be one seat short. Easy enough to fix, though. Skunk. Get out."_

_"Rach thu agus a' sgaoil am leathar de bhur paithar."_

_After staring at Lara blankly for a moment, Draco turned back to Harry. "I have no idea what she said, but I'm guessing it wasn't something agreeable?"_

_Harry snorted. "And here I thought all the smart wizards went to Ravenclaw." As if anything Lara said in Gàidhlig around them was polite. Ever. Save for occasional conversations with her fellow Scots at school, it was pretty much exclusively reserved for use as her 'swear in a way that authority figures can't understand so I don't get in trouble' language. But now, before his step-brother managed to piss off Lara further… Harry rose to his feet and drew his wand. Before he could cast a new set of Expansion Charms, though, a knock on the door drew his attention and he groaned at the sight of two pairs of familiar faces. Evidently he was wrong about the Carrows and Williams being able to amuse themselves. Flicking his wand, Harry slid the door open. "Alright, someone go see if one of the neighboring compartments is empty."_

_"One step ahead of you, Harry. We already…"_

_"…cleared out both compartments. Threatened to…"_

_"…use the midgets we found for transfiguration practice."_

_"Evidently our reputation precedes us." Flora and Hestia grinned at him before winking and blowing him a kiss in perfect synch. "You can thank us for our initiative later."_

_How… nice… of them. Making a mental note to make the rounds with the prefects and heads later so he could find out who the sisters had terrorized and apologize on their behalf, Harry gestured for the others to rise before vanishing both dividing walls. While technically he was defacing Ministry property, he knew his mother would be sweeping the train after it arrived at Hogsmeade to repair the inevitable scratches and dings that came with using anything to transport hundreds of teenagers and she could set the composite coach to rights before anyone who mattered found out. With that realization in mind… "Right then. I did the renovating. Who's doing the redecorating?"_

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Luna Lovegood groaned before rolling onto her back and staring up at the hoarfrost-coated hangings on her bed. These dreams of hers were really starting to become quite vexing. She wouldn't have minded having them if only they occurred a bit less regularly; they were rather interesting, after all. But for some reason, peering into the future brought out her bluer half and as immune to the cold as she might be, her half-jötunn body still found the abrupt drop in temperature that accompanied shifting forms to be jarring enough to pull her from a sound sleep. Not to mention that it was hard to roll over and return to Morpheus's embrace when her bed was practically frozen solid.

WIth another groan, Luna used her tail to flick away the sheets covering her body and then slid out of bed. Thankfully this had become a common enough occurrence that her parents had made provisions for it. Or rather her mother had; her father didn't like to acknowledge anything related to her other half because it forced him to confront some uncomfortable truths that he was much happier ignoring. Stretching out two long fingers, Luna pressed the tips of her index and middle fingers against a pair of Elder Futhark runes her mother had carved into the headboard of her bed, willing a bit of her magic into them. The runes flared a fiery orangish-red and Luna hopped backwards, barely avoiding the first of several successive waves of heat that enveloped her bed, liquifying the icicles and hoarfrost before evaporating the resulting water. Tail curling around her waist, she poked the tip against her covers before recoiling. Well then. She wasn't going to be crawling back in there for a bit. What now?

Looking down at her hands and then over at her bed, at least one thing came to mind: get back into a form that would fit into the bed without her needing to curl into a ball. Luna furrowed her brow and concentrated, working a piece at a time to return herself to as human a state as possible. Her tail disappeared first, her antlers following a few seconds later and letting her hair drop to cascade down her back. Staring at her hand, Luna watched as the markings on her blue skin disappeared, followed by the blue itself as her skin paled to a bluish-white color before shifting to a very human pale pink. The last stage was her hand - and the rest of her body - shrinking down as she reduced her body to something as close to human size as she could manage without feeling intensely uncomfortable.

Now that she was back in a human-sized form, Luna quickly replaced her torn pajamas with a fresh pair and put the old ones in the growing pile of garments her mother needed to repair. That brought her close enough to her bed to poke it again… still too warm to crawl back into. She needed to stall for time. Her eyes wandered the dimly-lit room before landing on the journal sitting on her desk. She could always go through what was quickly becoming a post-dream routine: record, analyze, speculate. And now that one Harry Potter was out of his house and at a place where she could contact him easily, maybe she could finally get a few answers.

She was particularly curious about this 'his Luna' thing, for one…

Absently nibbling on a slice of apple, Harry reread the letter he'd just received as he tried to decide exactly what it meant. Well, calling it a 'letter' might be giving it too much credit; the part actually addressed to him was a few lines jotted on a scrap of parchment that had then been fastened - with a muggle staple, curiously enough - to a stack of pages torn from a book. A journal, to be precise, and a dream journal to be exceedingly specific. At first glance, they were monotonously repetitive: each page was carefully marked with the date and time of the dream, a description of the dream, and then a bullet point list of thoughts and questions inspired by said dream. But it was the contents of the dreams themselves that were disturbing in the extreme.

Someone out there was dreaming that they were him. Seeing through his eyes. Hearing through his ears. Thinking his thoughts.

Someone knew his secrets, and he had no idea who they were or what they might be hoping to accomplish by contacting him.

Whether or not the dreams were genuinely oneiromantic - and they very well might be, he conceded, if they were anywhere near as accurate regarding the future as they were regarding him - was something he could waste time pondering at a later date, along with the specific contents of said dreams. Right now, his problem was… well, he just plain didn't know what to do with himself next. In an uncharacteristically stupid move, he'd let the owl leave without even thinking to slap a Tracking Charm on it, meaning he had no easy way of discovering who this mysterious dreamer was. Well, the handwriting seemed distinctly feminine to him but that narrowed it down to 'only'… how many witches were there in the Isles, assuming it wasn't a foreigner? And what did they want? There'd been no outright demands or even implied future blackmail, but rather a note that was literally only 'I have questions, I think I have answers, I'd rather know I have answers, write me back'. It made no sense at all.

Harry reread the note a third time. Write her back. How the hell was he going to manage that one now that he'd sent their owl away? It wasn't like he could address a letter to 'The Lady Who Dreams About Me' and give it to a school owl. Groaning, Harry rubbed his temples before reaching for the parchment and quill he'd laid out upon arriving in the Great Hall. He'd been meaning to write his mother - and by extension Narcissa - anyway. Maybe they'd have an idea that was better than 'wait and see what happens'.

…and if all else failed, he could wait and see what happened. After all, whoever it was would probably try at least one more time to get a response to a letter before giving up…

_Mum,_

_Sorry I haven't written you before now, but it's just been one thing after another for me. I was sorted into Gryffindor, just like you and Dad were. I assume you're proud of me. If you're not… lie. I'll pretend not to notice. Tell the twins I miss them… kinda. Sorta. They're a bit like fungus: they grow on you after a while. Oh, but I definitely miss Dora. Make sure she knows that. If you can tell the three of them both parts at once, that's even better._ _So far, Hogwarts has been fun enough. For school. It's a hell of a hike up to Gryffindor Tower, but I've been doing it for seven years and so it's not really a shock the way it probably is for my classmates. Speaking of my classmates - more specifically my housemates - I've got one who reminds me a lot of you. She's a muggleborn, absolutely brilliant, prefers trousers to skirts, and isn't afraid to stand up for what she belives in. Neville Longbottom called her a mudblood and she knocked a few of his teeth out in appreciation. Wicked, huh?_ _Oh, that reminds me… Evans Charm? How much money have you made off that one, and how have you kept Dad from finding out?_ _Back on the subject of my housemates… being in Gryffindor means I have to share a dorm with the Boy-Who-Took-One-To-The-Forehead. He reminds me of how you describe Dad acting when he was younger: an arrogant bully, but not a particularly intelligent or funny one at that. So far, Hermione's punched his teeth out and Daphne Greengrass - you should remember her from the tea party I had with Tara - hit him in the face with a stunner. And when he threatened to go after them, one of the prefects disarmed him and sent his wand to Professor McGonagall. Hopefully he'll get better as the year goes on, or one of us might not leave the school alive in June._ _If Dad is actually around to see you read this, pretend I actually put in something about him. Since he's probably not, I didn't bother. And make sure you give Cissy my regards next time she's over. Although with the way things have been going lately, she's probably there right now. In which case… hi, Mother. Don't worry, I'm doing my best to include Tara. Or as included as she can be without causing problems for her with the other baby snakes._ _By the way, I kinda sorta may have become the youngest seeker in a century after Professor McGonagall saw me during flying lessons. So I'm sending Albiona along too; she can help Silver Star haul my broom up to the school. And before you think I'm joking, try and remember that all this has happened before. All I had to do was put myself in the right place at the right time to make sure it all happened again._ _On a more serious - but not Sirius - note… there's a small piece of parchment tucked in with this letter. Yes, that's a girl's handwriting. Don't even think about making more jokes like you did about Su. Someone sent me pages from their dream journal… dreams where they're me. Inside my head. Seeing as me, hearing as me, and… thinking as me. They know my secret. I don't know who they are or what they want, but I was hoping that between you and Mother, you can figure out the former. Maybe one of you two will recognize the writing or you can trick Dora into bringing it to work to have her fellow students analyze it or… something. I need to know who this is and what they might want from me, and I need to know yesterday._

_Thanks in advance,_ _And love,_ _Harry_

A day later, Harry found himself staring up at the hourglasses and shaking his head in disgust as he took in the loss of points his house had suffered overnight. "Why do I have a feeling that the person behind this has a name that starts with an 'L' and rhymes with 'ongbottom'?" A repeat of the incident where Draco had tricked him into being caught by Filch, he assumed, just played out by Draco and Neville this time. Perhaps someone else would know for sure, though?

Hermione shook her head mutely, staring up at the point totals in horror, and neither Su nor Daphne could provide an answer either. A familiar voice from behind them, though, came through with the explanation. "I was in the hospital wing for a checkup when Longbottom got brought in with his broken wrist. Madam Pomfrey ended up going back and forth between us because I just needed diagnostic spells and he needed a series of charms applied that took a few minutes each to run their course. He got done a minute or two before me and just as I was walking out the door, I heard the end of the Malfoy boy reminding him of the time and place of a duel. Would have been last night. Considering Neville saw me and knew I heard, I didn't think he'd be stupid enough to go through with it. Evidently I was wrong."

"Yes, well, the wizarding world has a potion or spell to cure almost anything, but you can't fix stupid. What I want to know is how I slept through him sneaking out. And who he took with him." Harry ran his eyes over the Gryffindor table, spotting Neville and an equally subdued looking Larry beside him. "Never mind. Think I just figured it out." Turning his attention back to his favorite prefect - mostly because Percy was a stiff and he didn't even know the names of the other four - Harry smiled. "So, Cherise, did Pomfrey give you a clean bill of health?"

Raising her arms, the blonde twisted back and forth slowly. "Yep. I'll still get winded easily for a few more weeks but that has to do more with the effort my body is putting into healing itself, not any lingering injuries." Harry nodded but was inwardly unhappy; Cherise had come out of the hospital wing after only three days and sporting unblemished skin. The wizarding world could do a lot medically, but if Cherise had been attacked by Fluffy… either she would have gotten away easily enough that she wouldn't have spent more than a night in Pomfrey's care or she would have looked like ground beef after. But she didn't have a - visible - mark on her. So what the hell had attacked her and how did he get around it when the time came? "Anyways, since if I go over there I'll probably say something I'll lose my badge over, tell the little git that if I catch him sneaking out of bed again after curfew, I'll start using Sticking Charms to keep him in bed. And Merlin forbid he have to go to the loo in the middle of the night."

The mental image made Harry chuckle and he inclined his head. "Will do. But now… I know how Hermione despises anything that gets between her and her food. To breakfast we go." Cherise waved a hand to dismiss them and the quartet of first years made their way over to the end of the Gryffindor table. "So, Hermione, ready for training tonight?"

"Hell no." Hermione scowled as she spooned eggs onto her plate before fixing him with a glare. "You could just owl home and get a broom sent up here. There's no way my parents could just run over and grab me one from Diagon Alley or something, if they can even afford it. I mean, we're well off but I didn't even think to check broom prices because I knew I couldn't bring one and…"

Owls hooted overhead and Harry looked up to find two teams of owls hard at work: Albiona and Silver Star tag-teaming his own Nimbus 2000 from home and a trio of smaller owls grasping a similarly shaped but paper-wrapped package as they descended towards the table. "Hermione?" She looked up and he grinned as her eyes widened. "I don't think a broom is going to be a problem."

Hermione jumped up, food forgotten, standing on the bench so she could grab what was obviously a broom as soon as the owls drew close enough. The trio hooted indignantly as their cargo was stolen, buffeting her upside the head with their wings before flying up and out of the hall. Tearing the paper off, she gasped as she dropped back into her seat, thrusting the broom into Harry's face. "Harry! Look! A Nimbus 2001!"

"Hermione! Look! A Nimbus 2000!" Harry waved his own broom in her face, grinning with exaggerated enthusiasm, until she gave him the two-fingered salute and huffed, dropping the broom on the table. "I know you're excited, but try not to act like Longbottom would. Yes, you have a broom. So do I. Neither of us is supposed to. So let's have a bit more class than some people here would, and not make a big deal about it, okay?"

Sighing, Hermione took the broom and slid it off the table to hide between herself and Su even as Harry moved his to rest between himself and Daphne. "Fine. But I reserve the right to brag to Malfoy that his stupid stunt got the two of us on the Gryffindor quidditch team."

"Only if I'm there to see his face."

"Deal."

After dinner that evening, the pair retrieved their brooms from their respective dorms and, after saying goodbye to Su and Daphne, made their way down to the pitch. It was just as impressive now as Harry remembered it being every other time he'd visited, with its golden hoops on fifty foot tall poles and stands with seats for hundreds. "Ready, Hermione?"

Hermione huffed, swinging the massive bag she had slung over one shoulder and nailing him square in the back. The impact made him stumble forward, causing her to snicker. "For the tenth time in the last five minutes, yes. Now shut up. The more you ask that, the more nervous I get."

"Exactly." Harry grinned at her as he straightened up. "If you're nervous and end up not flying well, it'll make me look better by comparison." Not that he needed that kind of help; they were both good fliers but he was admittedly the far superior one. Not that a keeper needed to have his level of skill. She possessed enough natural skill to handle herself in front of the goals for now and would only get better with experience.

Swinging her bag back and forth, Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I see. What a cunning, cunning plan you have there. And what if I knock you out before we get to practice?" To emphasize her threat, Hermione lunged, letting her bag swing forward towards him again.

Harry dodged her second attack and began to walk away quickly, hoping to stay out of the reach of that downright painful bag of hers. "Then you get to explain to Professor McGonagall why her star seeker is in the hospital wing. Either way, I win and you lose." Hermione growled softly and Harry laughed, hauling arse across the lawn towards where six figures were clustered at the base of one of the stands. "C'mon, they're waiting for us."

Unlike in his original timeline, this time the entire existing Gryffindor quidditch team had turned out for his first practice. The Weasley twins didn't look quite as welcoming as he would have thought, but then again he wasn't friends with their little brother this time around - or in this world, their little sister. Likewise, Katie, Angelina, and Alicia seemed more intent on dissecting the team's newest girl with their eyes than paying attention, which was fine with him. Hermione would need to learn to deal with that sort of intent scrutiny before the first time she played for a crowd. And Wood was waiting with the crate full of balls, ready to kick things off. "Right then. I assume you both have enough of an idea that I can skip the basics? Positions, the kinds of balls, common fouls, and so on?"

"Right. If Hermione needs anything explained, she can ask me. Doubt that'll happen, though. She's read a few books and… well, now she's downright scary when it comes to quidditch knowledge." Harry instinctively ducked, letting Hermione's hand fly through the spot his head had just occupied before straightening up again. "Hey, Wood, Hogwarts uses the international standard rulebook, right?"

Wood looked puzzled at the odd question, scratching his head for a moment before nodding. "Best I can tell, yeah. I can ask Madam Hooch if it's really important, Potter. Why?"

Nodding his head towards Hermione, Harry tapped one hand against the top of her bag. "There's another reason I asked the professor if we could have Hermione as our backup keeper. Hermione, gear up?"

"Yes, Master. Right away, Master. Would you like some tea and biscuits while I'm at it, Master?" The chasers giggled at Hermione's antics and Harry made a show of tilting his head to the side, pondering it. "If you answer that last question, I will come up into your dorm in the middle of the night and kick you right out of bed onto the stone floor."

"Note to self: after Longbottom falls asleep each night, swap it so his trunk is at the foot of my bed and vice versa."

"Note to self: look for Longbottom's trunk and kick that person out of their bed."

"Note to self: come up with new plan."

Hermione let out a snort before dragging her bag a few feet away, opening up some space so she could kneel down beside it, unzipping it and stuffing her hands inside. Wood let out a low whistle. "She's a feisty one. Some poor boy's going to have his hands full with her in a few years." The others chuckled and Harry shook his head; if they only knew. Pulling out a long, rectangular blue object, Hermione pressed it against her left leg and began fiddling with a set of straps. "What's she doing?"

Rubbing his hands together, Harry gestured to his legs. "We wear pads, right? The dragonhide ones, kinda slim?" Oliver nodded. "But in the international rulebook… there's no rules about the pads we wear, other than that they can't be charmed, enchanted, cursed, or otherwise modified during the match itself. Those… are muggle field hockey goalkeeper leg guards. I'll bet you my Nimbus that she can take a bludger to the legs with those on and shrug it off."

The Weasley twins perked up at that one. "Deal! Except I don't know…"

"…what the two of us would do…"

"…with only one Nimbus. Care to…"

"…throw hers into the bet too?"

"Considering I like breathing? No. No I don't." The twins looked at Hermione and winced. Even they weren't brave enough to challenge her, it appeared. Harry turned his attention back to Oliver. "And yes I know, leg injuries aren't that big a deal for you. But… she also has a blocker for her arm. One right now, but we can get her a second." He gestured to where Hermione had moved on to what looked like a glove with part of a leg guard mounted on the back, covering the top of her forearm from elbow to wrist with a wide protective barrier. "There's no rule dictating…"

"…the forearm guards we can wear, as long as they don't have an active enchantment. Bloody hell, how come nobody else has thought of this?" Wood seemed utterly appalled that a pair of first years had come up with something his own quidditch-obsessed mind hadn't. Hermione pulled a last object out of her bag and Oliver groaned. "A helmet. The rules allow for a helmet but most of us don't wear them because they fell out of favor at some point and nobody wants to be made fun of for being the only person on the pitch wearing one."

Harry nodded and gestured for Wood to step back, leaning down in front of his team captain and opening the chest containing the quidditch balls. After grabbing a beater bat, Harry flicked the restraints off one of the bludgers and got ready. "Yeah, but Hermione doesn't want her frighteningly intelligent brain splattered across the pitch and I'm thinking of getting my own helmet because I'm not too keen on the idea either. Hey, Hermione! Think fast!" Bringing the bat forward, Harry batted the bludger her way.

Shrieking, Hermione brought up her blocker into the path of the bludger… and deflected it up and over her head. The impact forced her back a step and she grunted in either exertion or pain, Harry wasn't sure, but it hadn't snapped her arm like a twig and she was still on her feet. That was good news. Then the ball came back around, nailing her in the back of the head and knocking her off her feet. She lay facedown on the grass for a moment before holding up her right hand. "I'm alright!"

"And that was just proof of concept." Harry lazily batted the oncoming bludger up into the air, away from the rest of the team. "We can get her pads with the outer layer made of dragonhide, which will make the pads even stronger. She'll be unstoppable. And look at that, Wood. She took a bludger to the skull and she's still awake. She's got one up on you, eh?"

Eyes wide, Wood looked around at the rest of the team, barely even noticing as Harry batted away the bludger mere moments before it would have nailed him in the face. "If anyone else thinks that was bloody amazing, raise your hand."

Five hands went up. 


	10. Chapter 10

10\. Samhuinn

Time passed for Harry just as quickly as the first time around, with lessons and thrice-weekly quidditch practices to attend, and before he knew it two months had passed. As the end of October approached, though, he became aware of a major deviation in the timeline. Instead of the normal Halloween feast, complete with decorations provided by the professors, a contingent of parents led by his mother descended on the castle to organize and execute a Samhuinn festival.

It made a strange sort of sense to Harry, at least after he'd gotten over his initial surprise and put some serious thought into it. His mother was supposedly one of the brightest witches to come through Hogwarts in recent years. It stood to reason that after graduation, even if she did go on to become 'merely' a housewife who occasionally sold off a particularly interesting piece of charms work - and some that were mundane but useful - she could still produce ripple effects in the time stream. In this case, she'd gathered up the other housewives who had sent their children off to school and put them to work creating a festival at which all parents could come, visit their children, and meet the teachers responsible for the formative years of said children. Even the muggleborns' parents would be included, thanks to a special run by the Hogwarts Express.

As much as he liked the idea of seeing his family again, the whole thing presented an enormous problem for Harry. Would Quirrell unleash the troll in the dungeons again to cover his move for the Philosopher's Stone? That wouldn't make any sense; they could simply lock the school down with the residents outside enjoying the festival and he'd either be trapped outside or stuck with the rest of the professors as they tracked down the troll. But what other option was there? Release the troll on the assembled students and their families? What would that accomplish? In his original world, not being the head of a house, it had been easy for Quirrell to sneak off during the Halloween troll 'attack'. It'd be far more difficult to manage a feat like that in the middle of the festival.

Sighing, Harry did his best to push those thoughts from his mind and relax as he guided his Nimbus in slow, lazy circles over the Hogsmeade train station, watching as a crew laid out an engine and cars for the train that would be running to London and back. A pair of wizards slowly moved down the line, one hovering each piece as the other enlarged it from a small, toy-like construct into the full-grown version. Two things immediately jumped out at him about what the two were doing. Firstly, there were only four cars instead of seven… but if only the muggleborns' parents were using it - or perhaps just muggleborns' parents and a few half 'n half couples for whom King's Cross was easier to access than a floo - they wouldn't need nearly as much seating capacity. Also, the gleaming scarlet steam engine was gone, replaced with a boxy green tank engine. But then again, with fewer cars, it was probably easier to use a smaller engine. Wow, that was actually somewhat logical. Harry hadn't thought the wizarding world capable of such a thing.

A glint of metal caught his eye and Harry floated a bit further down the tracks, discovering another engine waiting separate from the rest of the train. He'd thought it odd that the green engine was resting on the tracks facing Hogwarts… maybe they were going to use two smaller engines and the crew would hop from one engine to the other after getting to London so they were always facing forward? Except… Harry drifted down the length of the engine, made a wide turn around the front and drifted back along the other side. This new engine was easily the size of the scarlet locomotive that normally pulled the Hogwarts Express, painted up in the colors of the Pride of Portree: purple with gold trim and lettering. 'MF&E 1' was painted on a stretch of metal just beyond the cab, but it was the tender that made him blink: 'MacFusty & Evans'. "What the bloody hell?"

"Language, Harry." Emerging from the cab, Lily turned her back on him long enough to descend a set of steps before dropping to the ground. Rubbing the back of her hand over her cheek and leaving a thick black streak, she waved him down. Harry obeyed, circling back around towards her as he did his best not to laugh at the blue overalls and matching hat she was wearing. "So, Harry, whatever happened to wanting to be more like me than your father?"

Still fighting to avoid laughing at her odd appearance, Harry came in for a landing next to the train tracks and hopped off his broom, swinging it up gracefully to rest on one shoulder. "What, I can't play quidditch and be at the top of every class I'm taking at the same time?"

Lily pondered that one for a moment, tapping her finger against her chin, leaving a new set of smudges. "You know, I'm pretty sure it'd violate some law of reality in the muggle world. Here… who knows?" She shrugged. "Just didn't see it coming after your sudden change in priorities this summer."

"Yeah, well, I'm doing well in all my classes. Top of everything except Potions and that's because Snape is a bastard. Even with doing my homework and helping my friends, I still have plenty of spare time and so why not quidditch? It was one of my favorite parts of Hogwarts last time around and it'll keep me busy and out of trouble until third year, when I can finally start some new classes." Harry watched as his mother shook her head in amusement before turning back to the engine she'd been working on, at which point he noticed something. Her hair wasn't in its normal simple ponytail today, but instead a thick braid that descended further down her back than he thought her hair reached. "Did you do something to your hair?"

Reaching up, Lily toyed with the braid for a moment before going back to work on something that reminded Harry of the pistons he'd seen under the hood of his uncle's car a few times. "Well, our Harry once grew his hair back overnight after I tried to save some time and money by cutting his hair myself and really messed it up… did that happen to you too?" Harry nodded; actually, Petunia had done it deliberately but they didn't need to get into the mess that was his former home life. "People seem to think 'accidental' magic goes away when you get older… but that's a horrible name for it because it's not an accident. It's merely your subconscious harnessing your innate magical power to express your inner desires."

"And this has precisely what to do with anything?"

Lily shot a narrow eyed look back over her shoulder and Harry pantomimed zipping his lips. After a second, she returned both to her work and her explanation. "Well, without Lucius around as much to berate her about what 'a proper lady of the House of Malfoy' should look like, Narcissa's hair has been growing back out to look more like she did at Hogwarts - wait till you see her tonight; I bet you won't even recognize her - and I guess that on some level I like her new look enough that my body's trying to mimic it and speeding up my own growth to match. Not as much as hers, but enough that I need a braid to keep from getting it tangled in things."

Nodding, Harry hopped back onto his broom and drifted skyward again as Lily returned to her tinkering. "Anyways, getting back to the whole quidditch and good grades thing… if you think what I'm doing is odd? My friend Hermione ranks between second and fourth in every class, is the reserve keeper, and she's a muggleborn to boot. She didn't come in with the advantage that most purebloods have from their parents and she's still kicking everyone's arse. Well, everyone else's arse."

"Language, Harry. And that's good to hear, especially after what you told me about underage magic use. I've been trying to come up with ways to help muggleborn students stay on a more even footing. You still friends with the two pureblood girls you wrote home about last month? Daphne and Su?" Harry nodded before realizing she couldn't see him and responding with an affirmative noise. "Remind me to speak with them. And Hermione, of course. Maybe they can help me see things I'm missing because I'm old."

As Lily finally finished with whatever she was adjusting and climbed back into the locomotive's cab, Harry floated down to hover beside the window. "You're not old, Mum. You're what, thirty-one years old? And Dumbledore's closing in on a century and a quarter? You've still got at least two thirds of your life left to live, more than that if you take after him." He gestured to the silent and cold engine. "Now this… this is old. And bloody odd looking. What is it?"

Lily stuck her head out the cab's window and looked up at him as she slapped her hand against the outside of the cab, right over the markings. "It belongs to the reserve on the Isle of Skye where they keep Hebridean Black dragons. I think it's called a Heisler? Not sure, to be honest; the MacFustys just call it the 'Flower of Scotland'. It's some kind of special locomotive the Americans came up with for working in the mountains for mining and logging back in the day. Two of the MacFusty boys went to Mexico and saved it from where the original muggle owners had left it rusting in a junkyard, and then shipped it over here because the reserve has some pretty rough terrain. I'm not sure if you know, but I have a bit of a thing for trains…"

"I never would have guessed from those oh so fascinating lectures you gave back in August…"

"…and so when they owled me looking for someone who was good with charms and willing to experiment with muggle machinery, I jumped at the chance. I've been working on it on a really short stretch of track out behind the house; it'll get its first real test by pulling the train a third of the way to London and then I'll shrink it and bring it back to the house. I'm hoping to have it finished by the start of summer for them and then next fall, when you're all in school and I'll have more free time, I was going to talk to the Ministry about seeing what my options were for reaching out to the muggle government and Network Rail. I'd love to get a siding off the Maritime Line straight into that empty stretch out back, and then I could open myself up to the muggle heritage railways to fix their steam engines up too. After all, I'm doing most of the Flower the muggle way already. Sure, I couldn't give muggle engines tenders that held more water and coal than they should, and I couldn't layer charms that help keep the innards clean and decrease the need for maintenance, but those are just added perks. The Flower would function without them. The whole thing wouldn't be cheap, of course, but James has more galleons than he knows what to do with. We could afford it." Lily trailed off for a moment before snapping her fingers. "Oh, and as long as we're on the subject of money? I went to Gringotts and spoke with one of the financial advisers about doing some investing in the muggle world. Are you sure putting half my life savings into this 'Apple Computer' company is worth it? Don't they make those overpriced pieces of junk that pretty much nobody buys?"

Blinking a bit at his mother's sudden and complete change of topic, Harry quickly recovered and drew his wand, conjuring a white plastic rectangle that was a bit over four inches tall, two and a half inches wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick. He held it out to Lily and waited while she examined it, knowing she wouldn't make much out of it. "Well, I'm pretty sure that turns around soon if it hasn't by now. But this is where the real money is with them. Sometime around now, they're going to make something that small that lets a muggle put a thousand songs in their pocket and walk around listening for hours. I'm not sure exactly when; Dudley didn't get it for his birthday but had one when I came back from my first year at Hogwarts. They came out with at least one new model a year, which was convenient because Dudley usually managed to destroy them that quickly. Just as I was getting ready for my last year at Hogwarts, Dudley was begging his parents to buy him the newest version when it came out. Some kind of touch screen device that let you listen to music, watch movies, it could hold and show pictures… and Apple had sold over a hundred million iPods and was going strong. Was about to put out a mobile with the same design, too. From there… well, I don't know because I got sent here but I doubt they're going to slow down."

Lily let out a low whistle before looking up at him with wide eyes and a gleeful smile. "I'm gonna be rich."

Gnawing idly on a piece of chicken, Harry tried to let his guard down and simply enjoy the evening, basking in the heat of the nearby bonfire and examining the faces glowing in the soft orange light. Daphne sat to his left, trying her damnedest to be civilized while picking away at a plate of food using her fingers, with Tracey beside her and Hermione and Su sitting off to his right. Tara had actually decided to sit behind him, leaning back against him so she could relax without falling over backwards. Lazy witch.

Amusingly enough, a few yards away Mister Granger was likewise surrounded by women, his wife sitting by his side as a loose half-circle of friendly witches chatted with them: Narcissa, Lily, Lady Greengrass, Missus Davis, and one Harry didn't recognize but who Lily and Narcissa were obviously friends with. Sitting on opposite sides of the group, James and Lucius were too busy glaring over their respective wives' heads at each other to eat, while Draco sat near his father and glared at anything and everything. Lord Greengrass, on the other hand, had opted to stake out a spot halfway between the adults and children, splitting his attention between his wives and where Harry was sitting with his daughters. Mister and Missus Li weren't present for the festivities; out of country on work business according to Su, who didn't seem all too upset about their absence.

All in all, it was the perfect evening… unless one was waiting for a random-yet-not troll attack. At this point, Harry was almost hoping for a homicidal troll to start causing a ruckus. He'd been on guard since the elves and organizing parents had hauled out the evening feast onto the lawn and the bonfires had been lit and if he'd wasted all night waiting for something to happen and it didn't, he was going to be severely pissed off.

Daphne opened her mouth, no doubt to remind him that retrieving drinks for one's female companions was the gentlemanly thing to do, when Harry was saved by the bell. Or, in this case, the possessed professor. "Troll! In the dungeons! Thought you ought to know…" And just like the first time around, Quirrell completed his performance by pretending to pass out, although onto the comparatively soft lawn instead of the stone floor of the Great Hall this time.

Like a shot, Dumbledore was up out of the throne-like chair he'd been occupying and gathering the professors to him. Tapping his wand to his throat, he magnified his voice so it echoed across the grounds. "Do not panic! If there truly is a troll inside the school, there are defenses in place that are capable of containing it until the staff and I can deal with it. Remain outside where it is safe and please try to enjoy the remainder of your evening while we handle this matter."

"Stay here, children. You too, Lily. The school's a big place and Dumbledore's going to need help searching it. I'll be back when things are dealt with." Harry opened his mouth to protest but his father just waved his hand dismissively as he passed. "Just stay out here where it's safe, okay?"

Harry wanted to debate the 'safe' part of remaining out here… tell him that Quirrell being out here made it inherently unsafe… remind him that there were only a few ways into the castle and only one big enough for a troll, meaning it had been intentionally brought in a while ago and not snuck in… but he couldn't. Not without revealing himself. So instead, Harry just scowled and remained seated on the grass as he watched his father join up with the Longbottoms and a few other auror parents before following the headmaster and professors into the school. "Don't panic." Harry scoffed. "At his age, he should know better. Of course they're going to panic now. If there wasn't something wrong, he wouldn't be yelling 'don't panic'."

"I know. Especially considering I don't have my towel with me." Suddenly, Hermione found herself the recipient of the odd looks that had previously been aimed Harry's way. "What? None of you have ever read _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_? 'A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have'? No?" Five heads shook at that. "Heathens."

Ignoring the confused mutters from his friends, Harry noticed his mother and Narcissa approaching and rose to his feet, moving to meet them and causing Tara to flop back onto the grass as her support abandoned her. Lily pulled him in for a hug, but Harry knew she was after more than physical reassurance of his well-being. "What the hell is going on?"

"Hell if I know. I mean, it's not like you were around to organize this in my original timeline. Quirrell released a troll into the dungeons so that the teachers and students would be occupied and he could make a run at the Philosopher's Stone, but now? He's locked out here with the rest of us… but he had to have known that would happen, so why even bother?" Harry looked over at Quirrell, noticing the man's eyes were open and his mouth moving as a sickly green light emerged from his tightly clenched fist. Then the professor slammed his hand down against the grass, causing a flash of light that was mostly hidden by his body, and Harry swore under his breath. A warding crystal; smaller than a ward stone but far easier to activate and transport. "Well whatever his plan is, I think he's making his move."

A moment later, Harry was proven right as the ground trembled and screams broke out all around him, with the highest concentration amongst those who'd been sitting near… "Trolls! Trolls in the Forbidden Forest!" Interesting. A bit too convoluted for his tastes, but he had to admit the idea had potential. Send the capable adults on a fool's errand and then make them rush right back out to engage in the real fight, leaving them exhausted and the school ripe for the robbing. Harry flicked his wrist, wand jumping into his hand. There was just one flaw in Quirrell's plan.

He hadn't taken into account that someone might remain behind to handle the trolls.

Someone like Harry.

Watching as the trolls slowly lumbered their way across the lawn, spreading out in a way that would spread any defenders as thin as possible trying to contain them, Harry shook his head as the crowd devolved into a rampaging mob of sheep rushing for the edge of the grounds. Well, at least there'd be fewer witnesses and people in his way. His friends, on the other hand… Harry wasn't even going to waste his breath attempting to convince them to leave. Harry wasn't even going to waste his breath attempting to convince them to leave. Especially given that the Greengrasses and Missus Davis had abandoned Daphne and Tracey and Lucius had likewise taken Draco and fled to safety, leaving Narcissa and Tara to fend for themselves. His friends, like Hermione's muggle parents, would be safer where they were. As long as they stayed close, he could protect them. "Mum, protect the Grangers. Aunt Cissy, keep my friends from doing something stupid."

"Can you actually take down three full grown mountain trolls on your own, Harry?" Harry looked back at Narcissa, who seemed genuinely curious. He nodded and she drew her wand. "Very well. This ought to be interesting."

Turning away from his… well, technically she was his second cousin but calling her aunt seemed more appropriate given the age difference…Harry took off running down the hill towards the trolls, his wand shifting into its axe form as he went. A spell he'd used for Death Eater crowd control in his previous universe came to mind and Harry twirled the axe before slashing it in a wide arc in front of his body. "_Knūa_!"

The wide burst of blue magic caught all three trolls, sending them stumbling back and buying Harry precious seconds to figure out what to do next. Trolls were relatively stubborn beasts who could shrug off a number of common spells, so stunning or putting them to sleep was out. Oh, he could do it with sure brute force of magic, but it would raise too many questions. As it was, he would inevitably end up answering a lot of questions about his actions tonight. If he played his cards right, though? He could probably escape with people believing his success was due to 'divine' knowledge rather than outright power. After all, there were probably only a dozen people in the world capable of stunning a troll on their own. Harry had absolutely no desire to be added to that list, especially at age eleven.

One of the trolls roared, drawing Harry's attention back to the present as it charged and swung its massive club at him. Harry brought his axe up to block but while the magical properties of his weapon allowed him to pull off the move, he was a preteen a hair under five feet tall who was fighting a twelve-foot tall adult mountain troll, and he felt the strain vibrate through his entire body. No, he wouldn't be doing that too many times. Putting his superior speed and agility to work for him, Harry dove between two of the trolls and rolled, hopping back to his feet and whirling to face the trolls' backs. It was a calculated gamble: the trolls probably weren't smart enough to look behind them for a few seconds, seconds in which they could decide the Grangers or his friends were more interesting prey. But Harry was confident he could keep their attention. "_Rīsta_! _Rīsta_! _Silfrǫr_!"

The first slash of his axe sent out a crescent of red magic, creating a great tear in the center troll's flesh, while the repetition of the spell created another to form an X. Harry followed up an arrow of silver magic that shot into the exposed innards of the troll, burying itself in the troll's spine. The fingers around the troll's massive club went lax as the spinal cord was severed and the troll let out a confused whine as it tipped forward, arms and legs no longer able to respond to the brain's commands.

The two remaining trolls started grunting and then, much to Harry's surprise, actually executed something approaching strategic behavior. One turned back to face him and avenge its fallen compatriot as the other started to stalk the rest of the festival goers. Harry's eyes narrowed. Well that just wouldn't do at all. "_Eldrǫr_!" Fire formed along the edge of his axe's head before an arrow erupted, striking the departing troll in the back. It didn't penetrate, splattering across the beast's flesh in tendrils of orange light, but it was enough to return the troll's attention to him and so that was good enough for Harry. For the moment, at least; he knew the longer this dragged out, the more likely someone was to get hurt. And so, mind racing, he decided upon a plan to take care of the school's troll problem in a way that was either brilliant or utterly insane. It would subject him to even more unwanted scrutiny, but… the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. "Aunt Cissy! I need a row of iron rods in front of you in case of leakage. Mum, herd everyone else back and get ready to shield against… well, everything else."

After giving the two adults a few seconds worth of head start, Harry raised his weapon high over his head and began funneling his magic into his wand-turned-axe as he fought the very order of nature to bring a thunderstorm into existence on a cloudless night. Dark, moisture-heavy clouds began to form overhead under his guidance as wind whipped across the school's lawn. Harry let the storm build, growing stronger and stronger under his guidance. It was one of the most difficult things in his repertoire to execute: calling on magic to pervert the natural order. Not only was it draining to call a storm into existence using pure magical power, but it took incredible concentration to keep it from either falling apart and dissipating or cascading out of control and turning into a monster that tore its way out of his ability to control. Lucky for him, the magic thrown around during his final duel with Voldemort had destabilized the atmosphere enough to spawn a storm naturally, allowing him to call upon its power without having to devote the effort to create or maintain it.

On the other hand, Harry knew from previous experience battling them that between their infamous skin and general hardiness, there was no such thing as 'overkill' when it came to dealing with trolls. So for them, he was willing to bring in the big guns and damn the consequences. He hadn't let Hermione get hurt in the initial timeline, and he'd be damned if he was going to let anyone get hurt this time around. Raising the axe to the sky, he concentrated on what he needed the clouds to provide… and then he struck.

The jolt he'd given Narcissa at the end of their fight was a flaring matchstick in comparison to the bonfire he was unleashing on the unlucky trolls. At the last second, Harry cast the strongest shield he knew in an attempt to protect himself as the air was superheated to nearly twenty-eight thousand degrees by the twin bolts of lightning that lanced down, each striking a troll directly. On the opposite side, as per his instructions, Lily likewise threw up a shield as the shockwave produced by the sudden superheating raced outward. Reinforced by Narcissa, her barrier shifted the blast up into the starry night sky. He, on the other hand, was thrown back as the blast slammed into his shield and blew him clear off his feet.

A sharp spike of pain slammed into Harry's head, making him momentarily worried that he'd been struck by a flying piece of troll or something, and then his body began to move of its own volition. Rather than worry Harry further, though, it was actually rather comforting; Mjölnir had done the same thing to him several times in the past and it was always the wand acting to preserve its owner. His tumble slowly stabilized as tendrils of his magic entreated the axe to respond to his needs, the head pulsing with blue energy, and then he came to a halt, floating in midair over the lawn as he stared down at the two steaming piles of troll.

After a moment, Harry looked away from his defeated opponents and noticed two things. One was the clump that was his friends and their parents, staring up at him in awe. The other was the headmaster, his professors, and the group that included his father… standing at the entrance to the school and looking at him with similar expressions.

"Bugger." One hand released Rensaren's handle, shooting to grab his throat. Or was that her throat now? Because evidently Harry had managed to turn himself into a girl again somehow. In front of the entire school. And a bunch of parents. "Double bugger."

Tucking one of her red braids back behind her ear, Hermione watched as her friend was ushered towards the front doors of the castle, his mysterious axe thrown over one shoulder as his mother and the mysterious Lady Malfoy did their best to block him from view. Or would that be 'her' from view? Because for one moment their eyes had met, and Hermione had found an undeniably female face staring back at her. Who was kinda cute, with her red hair and big blue eyes and… Hermione shook her head. She needed to focus. Mostly because she had no idea what the hell had just happened.

Well, there was the obvious. Harry had flown. Not on a broom or anything, either. He'd just… defied gravity for the hell of it. And brought down three trolls by himself, two by calling down lightning from what had been a cloudless sky. Not to mention the whole gender-changing part. She hadn't been a member of the wizarding world for long, but she was pretty sure that sort of thing wasn't normal. To say nothing of the fact that for some reason, people listened to Harry when he shouted orders. Not just her, but the rest of their friends, and even his own mother and Lady Malfoy. As he'd put it to her, he'd had a plan and she hadn't… but what kind of eleven-year-old boy could create and execute a plan to deal with a trio of mountain trolls in a matter of seconds? Especially when most everyone else was screaming and running for safety?

And what exactly were the dynamics between the Potter and Malfoy families? According to Daphne, Harry and Tara were related through his father and her mother, albeit distantly, while tonight… Lord Potter had seemed to barely tolerate the presence of his cousin, while Lady Potter and Lady Malfoy were apparently good friends. Lord Malfoy seemed to hate everyone but his wife, but that fit well enough with what she'd heard from… well, everyone. But how had two women who were so very different struck up a friendship, especially in the face of husbands who loathed each other?

A tap on her shoulder made her look back at where her father was staring at the still trolls with awe. "Is that the sort of thing that normally happens here at Hogwarts? Because if it is…" Hermione held her breath. Their second visit to the magical world and they'd been exposed to a random attack brought to an end by an insanely powerful boy-turned-girl her own age. They weren't going to pull her out, were they? "…we're definitely going to have to talk to your headmaster about making a donation. That was like something out of _Lord of the Rings_. 'You shall not pass!' and all that rot. To have my daughter someday able to do the same thing… that would be amazing!" Her father chuckled and rubbed his hands together. "Too bad we're not allowed to tell people about this. Wonder what Jeff would say if I told him my daughter knew magic. His little cricket-playing ponce of a son wouldn't sound so special anymore, would he?"

God, her parents were so embarrassing sometimes…

Eyeing her robes with disgust, Daphne waved her wand and muttered a few domestic charms to remove the stains, dry, and press them before turning and doing the same for Tracey. Ugh. Thank Merlin she'd actually taken the time to learn a few things that time their house elf got food poisoning from snitching raw shrimp, or else she'd be walking around looking like a slob until she could fetch new robes from the tower.

That had been a rather… interesting… display. Daphne looked around, finally spotting her mother's blonde hair amongst the returning crowd as she and her father made their way back over towards her, 'Aunt' Claudia trailing behind them. Daphne simply narrowed her eyes at her parents; they'd pulled her upright and tried to drag her off with them, only to leave her behind to save themselves when she'd stumbled and fell.

When the trio finally reached where she and Tracey were standing, her stepmother hauled Tracey into a hug before leading her away to talk to her, leaving Daphne with her mother and a father who didn't seem to know which woman - and daughter - he was supposed to be dealing with first. Finally, after a tense moment, he let out a sigh and drooped. "I'm going to be buying you two a lot of clothes and jewelry to make up for this, aren't I?"

Daphne nodded.

"Although to be fair, it's not like either of you was actually hurt…"

Daphne just glared.

After shooting furtive glances back and forth to make sure nobody was looking her way, Su took a deep breath and centered herself. While the Black Lake was too far away to be of any use to her, the storm that Harry had called into being - while dissipated - had left the air quite humid, giving her plenty of moisture to work with. It was a bit awkward to step out of her normal pattern of 'push and pull' to just pull, but after a few tries, she slipped into a comfortable rhythm and began to draw the moisture from the air, drops forming and then falling to earth around her to extinguish the smoldering grass that surrounded the two decimated troll carcasses. And by Tui and La did she wish that she was of air affinity so that she could disperse the stench that hung over the area. She'd smelled some foul things in her travels, but electrocuted troll was on a new level of disgusting.

As she worked, Su pondered the rather… interesting… display of spellcasting Harry had just put on. Oh, she'd seen plenty of elemental magic in her young life and even knew a bit of it herself, such as the technique she was using to douse fires at the moment. That wasn't the interesting part, per say. No, what interested Su greatly was that Harry apparently had the ability to bridge what - at least amongst her people - were mutually exclusive domains of magic. Gathering a storm from nothing and then calling down lightning… either a shuǐ dǎo gōng shī and a qì jié gōng shī working in close concert or an extraordinarily powerful shuǐ dǎo gōng shī could manage the former, while a select few huǒ guǎn gōng shī were capable of the latter. But to do it all, on his own, at his age? It defied everything she'd been taught about those with powers like hers. It was a mystery. Yet another mystery to add to the enigma that was Harry Potter.

And she didn't like mysteries.

Especially given she wasn't close to solving any of them.

He had a rough, albeit conversational grasp of Mandarin - and she really did need to corner him one of these days to see exactly how fluent he actually was - despite coming from a rather isolated and uninspiring part of England. He was too mature and intelligent for his age. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was repeating his first year with how easily he performed each and every assignment the teachers threw his way. But given he could use a wand - and she'd seen him both in the sunlight and in Quirrell's garlic-packed classroom - he couldn't be a vampire whose age exceeded his appearance, and if he was some sort of pretender hiding out in the form of Harry Potter, she reckoned that his parents would have figured it out by now and exposed him. And even then… she wasn't sure Dumbledore himself could have performed the magic Harry had that night and he was widely regarded as the most powerful wizard in Britain, if not all of Europe. If Harry was a more powerful adult wizard, why would he be hiding as the eleven-year-old son of an auror captain and his homemaker wife instead of installing himself as the Minister for Magic or something?

Maybe it was time to reevaluate her attitude when it came to dealing with one Harry Potter. For the last two months, she'd generally been foisted off on Hermione while he paired with Daphne or Tara. And while Su quite enjoyed the muggleborn's presence and the intellectual stimulation of a partner on the same level as her, it also meant she was missing out on a chance to get to know Harry better… and that just wouldn't do.

"Now, I think we all know why we're here…"

Harry looked around, frowning as he took in the relatively large group filling the headmaster's office. Dumbledore himself was there of course, along with the four heads of house, his parents, the Malfoys, Frank Longbottom, three strangers also wearing the red cloak of an auror, and Amelia Bones. He'd have to speak carefully, Harry realized; not only would there be a lot of people sitting there waiting to tear his lies apart, but some of them were trained to do just that for a living. As the silence dragged on without anyone making an effort to break the ice, Harry decided to open things on a light note. "I don't suppose it's to sample your candy collection. I hear you're quite the aficionado." Pausing, he grinned and gave mother a thumbs up. "Hey, you're right. That Word-a-Day calendar you bought me really does come in handy."

While there were apparently few in his audience with a sense of humor, the joke earned a snicker from his mother's direction along with an outright laugh from the headmaster. Dumbledore pulled out a tin of lemon drops, offering them first to Harry and then the others in the room before taking one for himself. "Now that niceties have been observed… I believe there are at least three different topics of great import that need to be discussed this evening, young Mister Potter. The first is the most interesting wand you wield. The second is how you came to defeat three fully-grown mountain trolls this evening. The third… is why I would have been referring to you as Miss Potter had this meeting occurred half an hour ago. In what order we discuss them is up to you."

Hmm. Was an alternate order even possible? After all, the second and third couldn't be answered without explaining the first, and the third was also directly tied to the second. So perhaps one-three-two instead of one-two-three? That didn't change that the beginning of the conversation, at a minimum, was set in stone. Ejecting his wand from its wrist, Harry held it up for a moment so everyone could get a good look before commanding it to transform into its axe form once more, eliciting gasps from his audience. "Well, according to what Ollivander told me at least? The Norse wizard who claimed to be Thor, the God of Thunder, made wands for his four children. Three of those wands were destroyed over the year. This is the fourth: Rensaren, the wand of his only daughter Thrúd. For some reason, Thrúd's son gave it to an Ollivander for safekeeping and it's been passed down through the generations, waiting for its new owner to come along and claim it. And when I went in for my wand this summer… it picked me."

Frank Longbottom's immediate reaction to Harry's statement made it very clear that Neville's apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. "That's an artifact listed on both the Bundesministerium der Zauber and Magidepartementet's Class One returns lists. And all this time it's been sitting in one of Diagon Alley's most heavily trafficked shops?" Shaking his head, he reached forward and patted Harry on the head condescendingly before reaching down to grab Rensaren. "Well, thank you for finding such an important piece of history for us, Potter. I'm sure… whoever ends up with it… will be very grateful to see it returned to its rightful owner."

"I wouldn't…" Harry tensed as he felt his magic respond to Rensaren's call, energy racing down his arms and releasing in the form of tendrils of electricity that lashed out at Longbottom's hands until the man cried out and fell backwards. "…do that if I were you. Rensaren chose me. It doesn't want to leave. Trying to separate us will make it angry. That was my wand being irritated. You wouldn't like it when it's angry." Waiting until after the glaring man had reseated himself, Harry turned his attention back to the headmaster. "Which has a bit to do with your second question. How I took care of the trolls, that is. Rensaren doesn't want to leave. That includes losing its owner to death."

Dumbledore stared at him intently for a moment and Harry felt a gentle nudge against his occlumency shields before the man sat back in his throne-like chair. "I see. Shall I take it then that you are implying that your wand acts of its own accord to protect you since it 'doesn't want to leave' you? And that your defeat of the trolls this evening was not in fact your victory, strictly speaking, but merely a case of Rensaren working through you to ensure your continued well-being?" Harry nodded, wondering whether or not the man would buy it. After all, if Dumbledore believed him - or at least didn't challenge him publicly - the others would likely follow. "A number of different woods are known for producing wands with unique, semi-sentient qualities even before the age and history of your wand are taken into account. I believe I'll write Garrick come morning, both to corroborate your story and to see if he can shed any further light on Rensaren's history and capabilities."

Hmm. The question then became whether or not Ollivander - or at least that was who Harry assumed 'Garrick' was - knew something that might contradict his story. On one hand, he and his family had been Rensaren's caretakers for generations, giving them ample time to study it. On the other hand, if it'd been dormant that entire time… how much could they have learned? Harry gave a mental shrug; he doubted Ollivander would lie to Dumbledore even if he asked, so what would be would be. Before he could restart the discussion, either to further elaborate on his answer to Dumbledore's second question or start in on the third, his father spoke for the first time since they'd arrived in the headmaster's office. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about… any of this?"

Harry shot a look his mother's way, meeting her eyes and using legilimency to slip a thought into her mind. She rolled her eyes, breaking the connection, but humored him and opted to go along with his plan. "Well maybe if you were home and awake for more than an hour or two a day, you might know something about what's going on with your children. Hell, James, even when I do try to talk to you about them, all you ever do is brush me off."

Just as Harry had hoped, things quickly went downhill from there as James was unable to keep from rising to the bait. "So hex me if I've learned to tune you out after ten years of coming home to you complaining about the latest hell 'my son' has raised. It gets a little old after a while, going off to work each day to earn the galleons that pay our bills, and then coming home to listen to you bitch about the children you're supposed to be keeping under control. Because unless I'm wrong, that's your excuse for staying out of the workforce: staying home to raise our children."

"Actually, I believe my 'excuse' was that I was tired of listening to your stupid excuses for why it was better for the kids to stay home with me instead of attending the local primary school until it was time to go to Hogwarts. Besides, you're the head of a ridiculously wealthy family, James! Why do you even need to work? The Potters from now until Harry's grandkids could live comfortably off the money sitting in your family's Gringotts vaults."

"If that's the kind of husband you want, maybe you should have married Lucius bloody Malfoy!"

"At this point, I'm starting to think that maybe I should have!"

"Like he would have let you bring home any of the muggle stuff you've junked up the manor with."

"Yes, because God forbid you ass backwards purebloods find your way into the current millennia. Oh no. We own an automobile. Good Lord, I've dragged the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter kicking and screaming into… 1885."

"Ahem. I have absolutely no interest in Lady Potter." All attention came to rest on Lucius and he shrugged before waving dismissively at Lily. "I just thought I'd make my thoughts on the subject known."

A scowl twisted the previously placid Narcissa's countenance at that. "Yes, your tastes seem to run more towards Mediterranean these days." When Lucius looked her way in surprise, the witch jabbed him in the chest with one finger. "Don't think I haven't noticed that an increasing number of your business trips lately just so happen to be to one of the biggest remaining siren enclaves in the world…"

And then the room devolved into chaos as two loud but completely separate arguments broke out, leaving everyone else to look on in shock and confusion as Harry sat back in his chair and smirked. 


	11. Chapter 11

11\. Gryffindor vs Slytherin

Following his duel with three trolls, Harry noticed everyone looking at him differently. It was to be expected, really; a single troll would be hard for an adult wizard to handle, and he'd taken out three as a first year. Unfortunately, though, Hermione and Daphne had migrated from good friends to the ranks of the 'admiring from a distance' for some reason and Harry found himself with only Su for genuine company.

Not that he minded. He and Su hadn't been as close as they could have been in his original timeline and this time around she was more of Hermione's friend than his, pairing with the muggleborn witch just as he tended to gravitate toward Daphne most of the time. So he decided that as long as people were behaving strangely, he might as well make the best of it and get to know his most enigmatic friend.

His best chance came each morning, as he took to the grounds to take a few laps around the quidditch pitch and Su staked out a spot near the lake for some sort of exercise that Harry vaguely recognized from one of Dudley's martial arts movies. Each time he reached that end of the pitch, he'd get to watch her go through part of the slow, graceful, almost dance-like routine before his path took him around the bend. And while she normally finished before him, waiting until he was done so they could walk back to the school together, Harry decided to push himself that morning so he could be the first one done, trotting down toward the lake to watch Su exercise.

Watching Su twist and turn through her intricate routine while working out with a pair of what appeared to be police batons, Harry debated asking for lessons as a way of securing an in with the girl. After a few more minutes of watching, he decided against it. All trying to do some of those moves would get him was a pulled muscle. Su eventually finished her workout and stood there motionless for a long minute, her long hair fluttering in the breeze. When she spoke, Harry barely heard it. "You have a question for me."

"Hmm. I guess we'll be signing you up for Divination with Professor Trelawney in third year." Su turned her head to the side enough for Harry to see the slight smile on her lips and he pressed on. "You're the only one who doesn't treat me weird after seeing three mountain trolls get fried. Not that I mind… but why?"

The black school robe Su threw on over her exercise clothes for modesty was resting on the ground and Harry bit his lip to avoid making a fool of himself as she bent at the waist to retrieve it, her already small shorts stretching tight over her posterior. Eleven, eleven, eleven, he reminded himself. A prior conviction for pedophilia would make getting a job - and a girlfriend - mighty hard after school. "You're familiar with Western magic, I presume? Using either a wand movement, an incantation, or both as a focus for your mind? Eventually moving on to silent and essentially still casting?" Harry nodded and Su waggled her wand back and forth. "Eastern magic is the same these days because we had to evolve when you gweilos came knocking. Before that, we used a slightly slower method that channeled more of a caster's power into each spell… but the results were a bit more spectacular. Sadly, grand results don't matter if you get killed before you finish casting and so it's fallen from use. That doesn't mean it's forgotten, though."

Harry scratched his head; he was no slouch mentally but even he had no idea where this was going. "Not that I mind the lecture on international magical history… but what does it have to do with why you're not treating me like Merlin with leprosy?"

"Tut tut, Harry. Don't interrupt the professor while she's teaching. It does tie together… because most of the old magic was elemental magic. While I can't create storms or call lightning…" Turning towards the lake, Su twirled her twin batons a moment, the shafts lighting up as a multitude of etched characters Harry hadn't even noticed before then began to glow blue. The batons moving at a feverish pace, she traced two glowing blue characters similar to the ones on her wand in midair, then a second set of two, and then used both batons to complete a final symbol for a string of five. "_Cīn gyùngsìng syhut seóin_!" Water surged up out of the lake, forming a foot wide pillar that rocketed toward Su until she twisted and jabbed one baton at Harry. The pillar curved smoothly, barely avoiding Su and drenching him instead. Harry sputtered in protest at the cold blast of water, throwing up a wandless shield to deflect it around and past him until she ended the spell. "…I do know a few things about elemental magic."

Looking down at his now thoroughly drenched body, Harry grimaced as he took a step and his sneakers let out a wet squelching noise. "How wonderful. Don't suppose you know any charms to dry my shoes, do you?" Strangely enough, anything beyond a basic warming charm had been too 'normal' for his training and so while he could theoretically overcharge one to take care of business… that might actually boil the flesh off his feet in the process.

"Actually… no. Sorry, can't help you there. Water here, not fire."

"Oh. Fabulous."

As the day of his second first quidditch game dawned cold and clear, Harry tried to summon up some of the nervousness and apprehension he'd had the first time, but it was impossible. This year's Slytherin team was dismal, relying entirely on brute force and causing enough injuries to allow their mediocre players to secure a win. He'd beaten them once already and with far less talent than he had now. This was going to be a cakewalk for him.

That, and he was really looking forward to seeing their secret weapon deployed against the elitist bastards.

Settling in for breakfast that morning with the rest of the quidditch team, Harry and Hermione exchanged little smiles as she plunked herself down next to Katie Bell, Su at her side as always and Daphne at his. To anyone else, it would appear as if Harry's friends were following him as always. If they only knew that Gryffindor now had an eighth man ready to take the field…

Way down the table where the rest of the first years were sitting, Harry could see Neville glaring at him. He just smirked and gave a cheerful wave before getting to work on his breakfast. After all, Merlin only knew how long the game might go and he didn't want to get hungry. But Neville… oh, that was a fun one. Ever since Samhuinn, the fat little bastard had been alternating between kissing his ass and cursing at him for not being friends. With anyone else, Harry would have recommended a St. Mungo's evaluation for some sort of multiple personality problem. In this case… it was pretty much just Neville being Neville as far as he could tell. Spoiled children didn't react well to the real world. Malfoy had been proof enough of that the first time around.

Speaking of Malfoy, he was an oddity in this universe. Apart from a few sneers here and there, the two of them had essentially ignored each other between the Remembrall incident and Samhuinn. But since then, the boy had taken to eyeing him uncertainly; he probably now knew that Harry held some sort of sway over his mother and perhaps wasn't sure what to make of his peer in light of that? Harry shrugged; as long as the little shit wasn't bugging him, he didn't care what Malfoy did.

Finally, game time came and Harry helped sneak Hermione into the changing rooms. Somehow she'd managed to escape notice so far, perhaps because everyone was focused on him being the youngest seeker in a century, and they didn't want to blow the surprise now. Even as the team lined up to take the field, Hermione was left behind to wait for the moment she was needed. "She's all set, right?" Wood looked nervous, idly tracing chaser maneuvers in the air with his fingers. "I mean, I hope we don't need her and all but…"

"Just keep your head in the game, Wood, and we won't have a need for her." Harry looked back and gave Hermione an apologetic smile before returning his gaze to the team's starting keeper. "After all, she only goes in if you get taken out. So as long as you avoid getting killed or something, you don't need to worry about how ready she is or isn't."

Wood nodded absently. "Right. Right." There were a series of increasingly loud cheers as Lee Jordan announced their names and Wood hoisted his broom up onto his shoulder. "Here we go. Good luck, all of you."

As they emerged onto the pitch, Harry looked around. Sadly, the 'Potter for Minister' banner from last time around was missing, but the new additions to the staff's box made it worth it. His parents were there, along with Sirius and Amy, his sisters, and Cassie. Sirius and James had even apparated out to retrieve Hermione's parents that morning, who seemed a bit confused at their inability to locate their daughter but nonetheless enthused.

Just like in all but one of the quidditch games he'd played in so far, Madam Hooch was waiting for them in the middle of the field as the two teams assembled. Her yellow eyes drifted over each of the players before focusing on Marcus Flint. "Now I want a nice fair game, all of you." Harry snorted derisively at that; as if the Slytherin team even knew the meaning of the word. Hooch eyed him for a moment before stepping back toward the ball crate. "Players, mount your brooms."

Hopping onto his Nimbus 2000, Harry hovered a few feet above the grass, twisting back and forth slowly. It still felt odd to be using this instead of his Firebolt, but sometimes one just had to work with what they were given. Besides, they'd hit the market in two years and he could be back on the familiar broom then. Terence Higgs glared his way and Harry responded by taking a page out of Hermione's book, offering up a two-fingered salute. The pureblood merely looked confused and Harry smirked. Ignorant bastards. Then Hooch's whistle sounded and they were up and off into the air as she hurled the quaffle skyward.

"And the quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor… excellent chaser that girl is, and rather attractive to boot…"

"Jordan!"

"Sorry, Professor."

Harry chuckled as he drifted lazily over the pitch, watching the quaffle fly back and forth. While Luna's commentary had been hilarious to listen to, there was just something about Lee Jordan that nobody could replace and he was glad to have the twins' friend back in the position.

"And she's really belting along up there, makes a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet… a good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve… back to Johnson and… no, the Slytherins have taken the quaffle! Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the quaffle and off he goes! Flint flying like an eagle up there… he's going to sc… no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor keeper Wood! And the Gryffindors take the quaffle. That's chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and… ouch! That must have hurt, hit in the back of the shoulder by a bludger. Quaffle taken by the Slytherins… that's Adrian Pucey speeding off toward the goals, but he's blocked by a bludger, sent his way by Fred or George Weasley, can't tell which… nice play by the Gryffindor beater at any rate. And Johnson back in possession of the quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes… she's really flying… dodges a speeding bludger… the goal posts are ahead… come on now Angelina… keeper Bletchley dives… misses… Gryffindor scores!"

Cutting across the field, Harry held out his hand to high five Johnson for her excellent shot before pushing the broom back to top speed as he made a quick circuit of the pitch in search of his prey. Nothing. Not even Fred's wristwatch or something gold in the stands. Hopefully the snitch would make an appearance soon, or he'd be in for a long and boring afternoon…

"Slytherin in possession… Pucey ducks two bludgers as he heads for the goals… wait, here come beaters Derrick and Bole…" Harry cursed loudly as the Slytherin beaters slid into position to intercept the bludgers the Weasley twins had just batted at Pucey, sending them flying back at their opponents. Or in this case, opponent: Wood. "Wood dodges the first bludger and ohh! The second one hits him in the head! Just like his first game a few years ago, keeper Wood has taken a bludger to the skull and appears to be unconscious! And time has been called."

Harry hurtled over to the Gryffindor goal posts, spiraling down toward the ground to land near where Hooch and Pomfrey were looking over the injured Wood. "He's going to be out for a while. Yet another dose of Skele-Grow for that boy, all because of this foolish game. When will you lot learn?" Waving her wand, Pomfrey conjured a stretcher under wood and lifted it into the air, making her way off the pitch.

As the other players touched down behind Harry, Hooch turned her attention their way. "You have no keeper. Play on or forfeit, Gryffindor?"

"We'll take the entirety of our time out, if you don't mind? We have a reserve keeper we can field for the rest of the game." Hooch gave Harry an odd look, turning to the rest of the team for confirmation. When she received nods all around, she nodded her assent before heading back to the middle of the field and waving the Slytherin team down to the ground. Harry turned to his teammates. "Alright, go form up. I'll be back in a minute."

The other four turned to leave but Johnson held a hand up, stopping them as she stared at Harry. "Who died and left you assistant captain? You're the youngest one here. Why do you get to order the rest of us around?"

Harry just shrugged, ticking points off on his fingers. "Simple. My friend, my idea, I can zap you with lightning if you piss me off and most of all… because I just did. Now do you want me to go get Hermione so we can play on or should we forfeit?" He held Johnson's gaze for a moment before she looked away, leading the others off toward Hooch and the Slytherins. "Thought so." Shaking his head, Harry entered the changing room to find Hermione sitting on a bench, adjusting her leg guards. Her hair was already twisted into a braid to make it easier for her to don her helmet. "You ready?"

Snorting, Hermione grabbed the helmet waiting next to her on the bench in one hand and her broom in the other. "Not really. But seeing as how Wood just got himself concussed again… and may I just say that can't be good for his chances at passing the OWLs and NEWTs? No Wood means either I go in or you guys allow the Slytherins free reign of the goals, and I'd hate to have to face the Weasley twins if it was my fault that happened."

"True enough. Come on, then. No time like the present." Harry gestured to the door and Hermione managed a small smile before leading the way out onto the field. As they made their way over to where the rest of the players were waiting, silence slowly descended on the field. By the time they reached Madam Hooch, Harry could have heard a niffler fart. He grinned. Perfect.

Flint was the first to find his voice, staring at Hermione in horrified awe. "What the bloody fuck?"

That seemed to shake Hooch from her stupor and she shot the Slytherin captain a glare. "Flint! Language!" Turning her gaze to Hermione again, the hard look melted away into utter bafflement again. "Although I have to echo Flint's sentiment, if not in those exact words. What are you wearing, Granger?"

"Pads." Harry snorted in amusement at Hermione's blunt and simple answer. "The international standard rules permit the players to wear one pad on each shin, one pad on each forearm, and a helmet if desired." Hermione tapped her leg guards and blockers for emphasis, drawing attention to the oversized red pads. Each one was Gryffindor red with a golden lion and trim, made of dragonhide over muggle foam padding. She'd had to order a second blocker to replace her goalkeeping glove, but since the quaffle was too big to try and nab in it, that was no loss. They too were red with the golden lion across the piece shielding her arm from harm. Hefting her helmet, Hermione slid it on and stared out at them from between the painted, roaring jaws of a lioness. "Unlike the rest of the wizarding world, I'm familiar with the phrase 'think outside the box'. The rules don't regulate the size of a player's pads and there's no required materials list, just a list of banned materials, none of which are present in my pads. So as much fun as being hit with a bludger and getting my skull cracked or a limb broken sounds in theory, I believe I'll be proceeding with my plan to show you lot how us muggles tend goal."

Turning to the staff box, Hooch raised her wand to her temple and fired off a silvery owl that shot across the pitch and up to where the headmaster was sitting. After a moment, his eyes went wide and he shrugged helplessly before firing a return spell back down to their referee. She eyed Hermione for a moment before sighing. "Dumbledore says the reasoning is sound and the game won't be delayed to appeal to the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Players, mount your brooms."

Flint glared and crossed his arms over his chest. "If she gets to wear that muggle shite, Bletchley gets to wear better pads too!"

Arching one white-blonde brow, Hooch eyed the Slytherin keeper. "Do you have something in the equipment shed that he's not already wearing?" The team exchanged looks before Flint shook his head. "Then mount your brooms or you can use up a time out to sit here and keep wasting our time."

"Fucking mudblood trash, polluting our game with her muggle sports shit." Flint threw one leg over his broom and pushed off the ground, hovering a foot or two above the grass. "When we get done with you, you're going to think Wood had it easy."

Hermione paused before dropping her broom, heading for the captain of the Slytherins. "Come down here and say that to my face, you snaggle-toothed bastard. I will fuck your inbred arse the hell up." Sweet Merlin, Hermione had a mouth on her. And he thought he'd heard the worst of it when he charmed those streaks into her hair…

Grinning widely and exposing his horribly troll-like teeth, Flint twisted his broom in a quick circle and forcing Hermione to duck to avoid being clipped in the head with his bristles. "Awful lot of bark for such a little bitch, mudblood…"

"Granger, Flint! Language! Granger, get on your broom or get off the field!" Walking over, Harry grabbed the back of Hermione's robes and tugged her back over to her broom before mounting his own. He was eagerly awaiting the impending carnage after that exchange and knew things wouldn't take long to explode. He was proven right almost immediately. As soon as all fourteen players were airborne, Madame Hooch blew into her whistle to resume play… and Hermione rocketed forward on her brand new Nimbus 2000, her right arm shooting out and clotheslining Flint. The Slytherin chaser let out a choked gurgle as his broom continued on without him, sending him sliding off the back end and dropping a few feet to the grass. "Penalty, Gryffindor! Penalty shot to Slytherin!"

"Sweet Merlin, before the players even make it into the air, new Gryffindor keeper Hermione Granger makes her mark on the game and sends that troll Flint back to the ground! Gryffindor is charged with a penalty, but it's completely worth it in my opinion. Go Granger!"

"Jordan!"

Making a slow, lazy loop along the edge of the pitch, Hermione pumped her fist in the air a few time and basked in the cheers of her fellow Gryffindors before taking up her position in front of the rings. After a few moments of angry discussion, Flint wrestled the quaffle away from the other two chasers on his team and rose into position to take the team's penalty shot. Without any help from his teammates or interference from bludgers, though, Hermione kept up with him easily and caught the quaffle, hurling it to Johnson before making an obscene gesture to Flint.

Harry was tempted to shout a warning as Flint made a beeline for one of his own beaters, wrestling the bat away, but Hermione had an eye trained on him even as she kept the rest of her attention on the quaffle. "What's this? Evidently Flint's not content at just failing as a captain and chaser today and wants to try his hand at beating…"

"Jordan!"

"And here comes the bludger… Flint whacks it toward the Gryffindor keeper but Granger seems strangely unconcerned… she's raising one arm and oh! Direct hit!" There was silence until Hermione waved the arm back and forth casually, then wiggled her fingers playfully. "Sweet Merlin, whatever that girl is wearing, she just took a full on bludger hit and doesn't have a scratch to show for it! It may look ugly as sin, but it gets the job done!"

There was a moment of silent and then what sounded distinctly like a slap being magnified by the pitch's magical speaker system. Then Harry groaned as his mother's voice emerged. "Excuse me, young man, but I helped do the sewing and charms work on those pads. They aren't 'ugly as sin', thank you very much."

Jordan, much to Harry's surprise, found at least one person scary enough to induce an apology. "Oops. Sorry, Mrs. Potter."

Shaking his head, Harry shot off towards where Bell was chasing a Slytherin chaser back down the pitch. Just before he took the shot, she slapped the quaffle away and dove to retrieve it. Harry followed, running along side her before pulling ahead and sliding in front. "Hey, Bell, my broom's faster! It's not blagging if it's your teammate!"

"I hope you know what you're doing, Potter!" Harry grabbed the broom with both hands, hanging on tight as it bucked beneath him, slowing noticeably as his teammate latched on. "Go go go!"

Catching Spinnet and Johnson's attention, Harry wracked his brain before coming up with the signal he'd seen them use in practice and doing his best to mimic it. Evidently he managed it, or close enough, because they fell into position beside him as he accelerated down the field, creating an odd augmented Hawkshead Attacking Formation. While he suffered from the weight of an entire second rider being dragged behind him, it was still faster than Bell could manage on her own and Bletchley was caught off guard as Harry tipped his broom upward, shooting up into the sky as she released him and rocketed beneath, drawing back her arm and hurling the quaffle toward the left ring. It passed through and a tone sounded, signaling another ten points for Gryffindor.

"And Potter taking after his old man…"

"Who the hell are you calling old, whelp?"

"James Potter!"

"Sorry, Professor."

"…getting in on some wicked chaser action there, helping Gryffindor rack up another ten points. Huh. In the middle of Gryffindor's three lovely chasers. You know, Potter, I had a dream like that once…"

"Jordan!"

"Moving on…" Harry chuckled and left the chasers to their own devices as he began looking for the snitch for the first time since the game resumed. After a minute or so, though, he realized Higgs was marking him… and that just wouldn't do. Leaning forward, Harry adopted a look of total concentration before diving. "And Potter's seen the snitch!"

Harry bit his lip to avoid smirking as Jordan fueled the exact reaction he'd been hoping for. Higgs gave up even attempting to be subtle - not that he'd been managing it in the least - and sped up, trying to follow as closely as possible so Harry would lead him to the snitch he couldn't yet see. Harry, feeling a bit playful, raced toward Spinnet from behind, coming within inches of her as he rocketed past. Hopefully Higgs wouldn't hit her, but if he did… blatching penalty on Slytherin and a penalty shot for Gryffindor.

Higgs managed to avoid the midair obstacle, though, and Harry decided to try something a bit more challenging. As he headed for the Gryffindor goal posts, Harry raised one arm and tapped it against his chest. Hermione nodded in understanding, leaning back and clenching her thighs around the broomstick as she prepared to do her part. Waiting until he was almost to Hermione, Harry slid a bit to his right and hauled back on the broomstick, hanging on for dear life as the sudden deceleration nearly threw him off. Higgs, left with either trying a hard turn, rise, or dive at top speed or threading the needle between the two, opted for the latter option. It proved to be a mistake when Harry and Hermione each thrust an arm out, hand wrapping around the other's wrist for support as the seeker slammed into them.

"Bloody hell! Higgs gets teamed up on Granger and Potter, getting knocked off his broom and sent flying into the bottom of the center goal. I could hear his head hit that ring from here, folks; that boy isn't getting up anytime soon. No doubt there's going to be a penalty and a free shot for Slytherin, but again… good work Granger and Potter! They may be the newest members of the Gryffindor team but they're certainly going out of their way to make their presence felt!"

In short order Higgs was carted off the field to join Wood in the hospital wing, Flint failed to make another penalty shot, and regular play resumed. Hermione was starting to take more bludger shots than before, though, and so while Harry knew that technically Gryffindor could run the game out indefinitely and rack up an enormous score since only he could end the game, he decided catching the snitch soon would probably be a good idea. The padding would hold up to a great deal of abuse, but why risk the brightest mind of his generation for no good reason?

The game continued on for almost half an hour, the Slytherins scoring once in a while as the Gryffindors ran up a huge lead on their increasingly desperate foes, and the end was almost anticlimactic. Hovering near the Gryffindor goals as he watched Hermione used the quaffle to hit a Slytherin player in the back of the head, Harry almost missed the glint of gold that indicated the snitch. Almost, but not quite. Wheeling around, Harry flattened himself against the broom and took off like a shot, eager to land Gryffindor another hundred and fifty points and end the game.

The snitch drifted close to where Flint was hovering and Harry was momentarily worried the Slytherin chaser would blatch or a snitchnip just to be cruel, but after a long moment, Flint pulled back to give Harry room. Perhaps he wanted to end the humiliation, or perhaps he realized that with Wood in the hospital, the game couldn't be ended through mutual captain consent and it was entirely up to Harry. Whatever the reason, Harry was just glad he wouldn't have to wrestle the brute for the snitch. "Go for the mudblood!"

Well now. That didn't sound good. Intent on catching the snitch to end the game, though, Harry left Hermione to fend for herself, putting his broom into a steep dive as the snitch plummeted to earth, relying on Jordan's commentary to keep abreast of what was going on. "Derrick and Bole seem to have abandoned the game itself, leaving the bludgers to the Weasley twins as they head for the Gryffindor goals. Potter may be about to catch the snitch, but Flint seems to want to leave a lasting impression on the Gryffindor team by hospitalizing two keepers in one game. I have no idea what Granger's plan is, because she's not making a run for it. Instead, she's pulling the broom upright and if I didn't know any better…"

Harry leaned forward, thrusting his hand out. Three inches away… two inches… one… his fingers curled around the snitch and he pulled up, pumping his hand in the air. "Got it!"

"…it is! Granger pulls off a Starfish and Stick but instead of blocking the quaffle, she plants her foot straight into the chest of Derrick! For the third time today, Granger has knocked a Slytherin from the sky and it's not even a penalty because Potter had already nabbed the snitch! A hundred and fifty points for Gryffindor and they win, three hundred and twenty to forty!"

Landing, Harry found himself attacked from both sides as Su and Daphne latched on, delivering rib-cracking hugs before pulling away, Su to do the same to Hermione and Daphne to take his arm in a far more ladylike fashion. "Amazing game, Harry. Although I could have done without that one maneuver you did with Hermione. Both of you could have been thrown from your brooms, and where would Gryffindor have been then?"

Harry chuckled and gave Daphne's arm a squeeze as he led her over to Hermione and Su. "Hermione and I ran through it in practice dozens of times. Wood and the twins charmed a school broom with a dummy to fly into us. We tested it with someone up to Flint's weight. What'd we end up calling it, Hermione? The 'Murderous Muggleborn'? Oh wait, that's what you did to Flint…"

"Hey, why don't we head back up to the castle and play a rousing game of 'Hide and Go Fuck Yourself', Harry?" Hermione thrust her broom out like a lance, jabbing Harry in the chest and sending him stumbling back. "Besides, we agreed. It's the 'Mad Muggleborn', in both the solo and team-up versions."

Before Harry could respond, Hermione was rocked forward by a slap to the back of her head. Behind her was a tall, middle-aged woman with Hermione's trademark wild brown hair. "Language, damnit. We raised you better than this."

From beside his wife, Mr. Granger opened his mouth to comment, closed it, and then shook his head. "I'd remark on the irony of that statement, dear, but it's not worth sleeping on the couch when we get home." Taking Hermione by the shoulder to spin her around, he grabbed her in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground. "That's my girl! Glad to see you didn't take any rubbish from those boys on the field."

"Oof! Put me down! Dad, you're embarrassing me in front of… well, everyone!" Hermione batted helplessly at her father's arms for a moment before he chuckled and released her. She stumbled a bit before regaining her footing, glaring at him as she smoothed down her robes. "Bloody hell, I can't take you two anywhere." Harry couldn't help but laugh at her misfortune and soon her glare was turned on him. "Laugh it up, Harry. Don't look now, but I'm not the only one with parents here today…"

That was all the warning Harry received before being bowled over from behind. "Oh my God, I was so worried about you! And what were you thinking, trying that move with Hermione? You could have gotten yourself killed!"

Hermione snickered.

Harry glared at her, issues with his mother forgotten as he reached up to pat Lily on the back as she clung to him. 


	12. Chapter 12

12\. Home Again, Home Again

In the aftermath of the quidditch game, the school seemingly decided that he was just a normal young wizard, albeit one with a fantastic amount of power, and things largely returned to normal. Now and again Harry caught Hermione giving him a look he couldn't quite decipher, but she and Daphne were back and talking to him like friends instead of fangirls which was all that mattered to him.

November blew past in a flurry of classes, quidditch practices, study sessions, and raids on the kitchen and soon it was December and snow was falling. Ravenclaw defeated Hufflepuff by a narrow margin, putting the teams second and third respectively in the standings for the Quidditch Cup. As Christmas approached, though, Harry realized he had absolutely no idea what was in the Forbidden Corridor this time around. He still maintained that whatever had injured Cordelia wasn't Fluffy, based on how fast she recovered. But if it wasn't the cerberus… what was it?

There was only one person at Hogwarts he knew he'd be able to get an answer from: Hagrid.

And so that's how Harry found himself battling through knee-high snow one afternoon to reach Hagrid's hut, scarf wrapped tight around his neck as he shivered in the fierce cold. As soon as he reached the front steps, he hammered on the door hard, desperate to get in. Idly, he wondered if Su knew any other elementally inclined students in the school. Maybe Cho… no, she was definitely a water if she had an ability in the elemental arts. Hermione? She definitely had the temperament of a fire. And times like this would definitely make a fire-inclined friend good to have. The door swung open and Harry found himself looking far up into Hagrid's confused face. "Harry Potter? Blimey, I haven' seen yeh since… well, before yer mum an' dad went into hidin' near the end of the last war! Come on in!"

Harry allowed himself to be bustled over to a seat near the fire, taking the large cup of too strong tea that Hagrid gave him. "Err, thanks. No, I just came down because I heard a few students talking about a three-headed dog and… well, you're not the Care of Magical Creatures professor but everyone I asked said you're even better than Kettleburn." Harry grinned and leaned forward. "So, is there a three-headed dog in the school?"

"How'd they find out about Fluffy?"

There was a muffled crash from somewhere in the back room of the hut and Harry whipped out his wand, ready to hex whoever the interloper was. "Rubeus Hagrid!" A disturbingly pale redheaded girl in her late teens, wearing a uniform marked with the yellow and black trim of Hufflepuff, emerged and put her hands on her hips, reminding Harry greatly of Molly Weasley when the twins did something wrong. "Did you or did you not tell me at the end of last year that you'd leave that mutt of yours at home this year? The last thing you need is someone getting bit by one of your pets when you're trying to get Headmaster Dumbledore to give you Kettleburn's job at the end of next year."

Hagrid actually appeared to blush a bit at the rebuke, staring down at his feet as he fidgeted. "Erm, I did leave Fluffy at home, Candace. Hogwarts. This is where I live. I thought ye knew that?"

"I… I… damnit!" Candace stomped across the room, throwing herself down onto the chair next to Harry and crossing her arms over her chest as she sulked. "I can't believe I fell for that one." Suddenly, she jerked upright and rocketed from her chair, spinning in a circle as she regarded the room with wild eyes. "Wait. If Fluffy's still here… where's that runespoor you promised me you were 'bringing home' last summer?"

Looking nervous, Hagrid whistled softly as he tried to look anywhere but at Candace. Then something black and orange dropped from the rafters of the hut, causing Candace to shriek as it landed on her shoulders, the tail curling around her torso. Three heads turned to stare at her, tongues flicking out to taste the air. _§ You rang? §_

Candace screamed, grabbing the six-foot long snake and hurling it at the wall. "Hagrid!"

The runespoor hit the stone wall near the fireplace with an annoyed hiss, surging away from the roaring fire to a slightly safer spot in the middle of the floor. Then, much to Harry's astonishment, the middle head burst into song. _§ Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off discourteously. For I have loved you well and long, delighting in your company. §_

Swaying back and forth, the left and right heads joined their brother in song. _§ Greensleeves was all my joy, greensleeves was my delight. Greensleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my lady greensleeves? §_

Harry had to bite his lip to avoid laughing out loud at the runespoor's antics, wondering where it'd picked up a muggle song from. Or maybe it was a song that had originated in the wizarding world and seeped out to the muggle masses? Far too often, he'd assumed some historical figure to be a muggle only to have Hermione inform him otherwise. Actually… did it really matter?

As Hagrid stammered apologies and hustled the three-headed snake from the room, Candace huffed and retook her seat next to Harry, rubbing her hands over her arms and shuddering. "Now that we're done with that foolishness… my name's Candace Wiedmaier. Sixth year Hufflepuff. Hagrid's trying to get himself together and apply for Professor Kettleburn's job when he retires and since I really love magical creatures too, I figured I'd help him out by sharing my class notes, telling him what we did for homework, and so on."

"Wicked." Harry wondered if there'd been a Candace in his own universe that was responsible for Hagrid's ascension to teacher in his third year. Maybe down the road he could get a pensieve and examine his memories of the first two years' mealtimes to see if he could spot her. "So, you don't like the runespoor or Fluffy? Have something against animals with three heads?"

Candace shook her head, waving her wand and summoning a photo off the mantle above the fireplace. In it, Hagrid stood over Fluffy like a proud father, petting the dog's back as the heads took turns licking the face of a laughing Candace. Back then, though, the cerberus had only been slightly bigger than a large muggle dog. "It's nothing against Fluffy, but now that he's huge… he's a risk to the students. I just don't want anyone to get hurt. Then again, I'd take Fluffy over that runespoor of his. At least you can calm Fluffy down with some music. That runespoor is just plain dangerous. If you get bit by the right head… well, your head of house is going to be writing a letter to give your parents their condolences."

Hmmm. As funny as a snake that could keep itself company sounded for a pet… he probably wouldn't be able to convince his parents to let him buy one if they were that poisonous. Drat. Harry nodded, giving an exaggerated wince as well. "Yeah, I can see why you might not like the runespoor. So what about Fluffy? Where do you get a three-headed dog from, anyways? Duplication charm gone horribly wrong? Transfiguration homework of yours that you got a Troll on?"

"I bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year." Hagrid emerged from the other room, short one runespoor. "I was goin' to sell him off to be a guard at a magical animal reserve, but Dumbledore wanted me to keep him around in case we needed a new guard for…" He trained off and winced. "Never you mind."

Leaning over, Candace nudged Harry in the ribs. "That's about as far as I've heard him go. One time, he mentioned someone named Nicholas Flammel. It's all terribly mysterious. Makes me want to go up to that corridor and see what Fluffy's guarding, now that they replaced whatever attacked Cordelia Cram with a beast I know how to get past."

Harry nodded, finding himself with a lot of answers to his questions. Fluffy was the second guardian; Cordelia had gone up against something else and been hospitalized… probably obliviated so she couldn't share tales of her encounter, too. But if Fluffy was there now and had the same weakness as his universe's Fluffy, he was all set. Idly, he wished Lara was already at Hogwarts. It would have been interesting to pit her… unique talents… against Fluffy.

"_Tempus_!" Smoke emerged from the end of his wand, curling to form the time. Harry gave another overdone wince and set his cup of tea down, making a show of adjusting his hat and scarf. "Well, I need to get up to the library. Promised Su and Hermione I'd go over this week's transfiguration assignments with them. Hagrid, Candace, if you want to use me as a test student, I'd love to come hear about magical creatures some time. Just send an owl up to the castle."

As he hurried out the door, mind buzzing with plans regarding Quirrell and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry winced as Candace's voice reached his ears. "You may have a good reason for Fluffy, Hagrid, but what's your excuse for that damned runespoor still being around?"

Poor Hagrid.

On the list to go home for the holidays this time around, Harry found himself sneaking out of Gryffindor Tower one night to complete something he'd done a week or so later in his original universe. Without his invisibility cloak, he had a bit harder of a time of things, but he still knew the school better than anyone alive short of the headmaster and he easily reached the room housing the Mirror of Erised without being caught. Even if he didn't find it, the mirror would inevitably be moved to become part of the Stone's defenses and Harry found himself quite curious about what he'd see reflecting this time around, now that his parents were still alive.

Stepping in front of the mirror, Harry took a deep breath and slowly lowered the intricate mental shields that kept him protected from outside intrusions. As the layers fell away one by one, an image gradually appeared in the mirror, growing more and more distinct as he revealed more of his mind to the magical artifact. Then the last barrier dropped, and Harry stared at the result.

He knew his subconscious worked in odd ways, but… wow.

A version of himself in his late teens was sitting on a throne-like chair, Voldemort's decapitated head impaled on a pike beside it. For some reason, his mirror self's hair caught his eye for a moment: it was longer than he'd ever kept it in either world and deep red, darker than his mother's but still lighter than his existing jet black mess. Kneeling at his feet were the same elfin Daphne, serene Su, and busty strawberry blonde Luna as he'd seen in his dreams. All three were armed: Daphne was in possession of Mjolnir and Luna toyed idly with the head of Rensaren, while Su knelt calmly between them with the weapons he'd seen her working out with beside the lake resting against her thighs. Off to the left of the chair, a rather smug looking Hermione stood between the twins with one arm around each girl's waist. And on the opposite side, Lara allowed herself to be doted on for a moment as Lily fussed with her hair before batting at her hands and pulling away, leaving Narcissa to snicker at their byplay and Carina beside her mother, looking down her nose at all of them.

Moving closer, Harry studied the odd apparition, wishing he was dealing with a pensieve instead of a magical mirror so he could walk all the way around the odd tableau and examine it from all sides. Defeating Voldemort… that was a clear and understandable desire. No Voldemort, no dead loved ones. Hermione with both his sisters… at least then he wouldn't have to worry about boys, either in terms of dating his little sisters or disrupting the flow of the group by putting demands on Hermione's time. He'd probably freak out a bit more when - or preferably if - it came to pass, but for now he was just going to nod and smile and accept the easy explanation. Lara still being in his life… he liked having a few good close friends instead of a lot of acquaintances. Maybe that's what she represented?

His mom and Narcissa… well, he got on a lot better with Cissa than he did with James Potter. And his father was only a hair below Lucius Malfoy these days on his worthless prick list. Was it any real surprise that he wanted them both out of the picture and the two adult women in his life happy together? Carina was a bit of a package deal; if Lucius was dead or imprisoned, someone would have to finish raising the Malfoy heir…ess? Heir? Whichever.

That just left the matter of the three gorgeous young ladies kneeling in front of his doppelgänger. Luna was by far the most affectionate, rubbing her cheek against his mirror self's knee as she stared out at him. His older self leaned forward, burying one hand in Luna's thick strawberry blonde mane even as the other alternated back and forth, running through first Su and then Daphne's hair.

So he wanted to defeat Voldemort and then live a happy life surrounded by hot female friends? He could get behind that plan. Harry slowly began to reconstruct his occlumency shields, the image in the mirror fading away as the enchanted object's magic lost its hold on him. But yeah, that sounded about right. After all, what was a good life without good scenery? Not that he had anything against ugly girls… well, he disliked Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson, but very little of that had to do with their appearance…

He didn't return to the Mirror of Erised again after that first night.

When classes finally let out for Christmas, Harry found himself joining his friends on the Hogwarts Express despite his wishes. While some of his powers were out in the open now, as enjoyable as staying at the far quieter and less cramped school for a few hours and then teleporting to London sounded, he wanted to keep at least a little something in reserve. Maybe he'd have a little fun and dive off the train a bit outside of town and fly the rest of the way to King's Cross.

So instead of enjoying a bit of alone time in Gryffindor Tower with nobody to bother him, Harry found himself in a compartment on the train as it chugged towards London. Thankfully the company was good, as Su and Hermione got in some last minute transfiguration practical work before the latter returned to a house targeted by a Ministry sensor and Daphne seemed content to just spend time with him, absent-mindedly pitching in a piece of advice here or there.

Looking down at the head resting on his shoulder, Harry smirked. Or rather she had been pitching in advice. At some point, she had lost interest in Hermione's compulsive studying and dozed off on him, clutching his arm possessively as she snuggled against his side. Harry was actually glad to have her there, the more he thought about it; he'd noticed girls ranging from first year all the way up to seventh eyeing him and quite frankly, it creeped him out. Especially since while he did know most of them from his past life experience, most of them hadn't even talked to him so far in this one. Daphne made an effective shield, being from a prominent pureblood family ranking just shy of the Malfoys in the grand scheme of things. And the reputation she'd gained for hexing Neville her first night at Hogwarts certainly helped matters. As long as he kept her close, she kept the girls outside of his circle of friends far, far away.

Honestly, Daphne was a bit of a mystery to him. Every time Harry thought he had her figured out, she went and did something that reminded him that girls were a breed of creature more bizarre than anything Hagrid brought to class. She'd been downright hostile to Neville and then latched on to Harry despite assertions she wasn't looking for something yet, ranged from politely affectionate in public to downright cuddly in private… maybe she figured that since he was a decent boy from a prominent pureblood family, she could likewise use him as a shield and count on him not to take advantage of their closeness? It made his head hurt sometimes. Not quite as much as his old curse scar, but close.

Thankfully, the universe picked that moment to provide Harry with something to distract him from the Daphne issue, in the form of Longbottom and friends invading his compartment. "Potter."

"Wow, after four months sharing a dorm, you know what my last name is." Harry gave a mocking little clap at that. "Congratulations. I'm sure we'll have you remembering my entire name by the end of the year."

Longbottom bristled a bit at the condescending tone in Harry's voice, as well as the giggles that came from the girls in the compartment. "Listen, Potter, you've shown that maybe you're not as useless as I thought. So I figured I'd give you another chance." Stepping further into the compartment, he put himself between Harry and Su and Hermione, holding out his hand. "I'm feeling generous, so I'll even let you bring Daphne along even though she had the bad taste to choose your friendship over mine. All you need to do is stop hanging out with these two losers."

The mention of her name had Daphne stirring but Harry squeezed her thigh in warning before pulling his arm from her grasp and rising from his seat, chuckling softly as he watched Longbottom scramble backwards. "Unless you want Pomfrey to have to make another visit to the Express to fix you up, Longbottom, I strongly suggest you get the hell out of here." Harry took a step toward the Boy-Who-Lived, but surprisingly enough his opponent held his ground. "Now. Or do you want to see if you do any better against me than an adult mountain troll?"

"What are you going to do, try and zap me with real lightning? Please, Potter. The Ministry would have you carted off to Azkaban before you even had a chance to blink. After all, I'm the Boy-Who-Lived." Longbottom grinned widely, spreading his arms out away from his body. "Go ahead. Try your luck."

Harry pondered the invitation, before deciding to accept it. After all, maybe another round of 'Abuse the Wanker' might encourage Longbottom to seek entertainment elsewhere in the future. Surging forward, Harry wrapped his arm around Longbottom's throat, twisting so the pudgy boy was forced to turn and present his front to Hermione. The muggleborn was waiting, planting her fist in Longbottom's gut before bringing her knee up roughly into his crotch. Harry let go as the Boy-Who-Lived wheezed and tipped over, curling into a ball with his hands over his privates. "Hmm. That was pretty lucky, eh?"

Snorting in laughter, Hermione settled back into her seat and grabbed the book she'd set down between her and Su upon Neville's entry. "You don't need luck to beat Neville Longbottom. I'd say all you need is a pulse, but I'm pretty sure zombies and vampires would be able to take him too."

"True, true." Harry retook his seat next to Daphne, eyeing the trio of shocked boys in the doorway. "Well? You're his minions. Make yourselves useful and drag him out of here. Especially with how hard Hermione hit him in the stomach; he's probably going to puke any minute now and I don't want that stench in here." The trio glared at him but got to work, Dean and Seamus each grabbing under one of Longbottom's arms as Ron grabbed the feet. "Good boys." Drawing his wand, Harry closed the door behind them and locked it before returning his attention to his friends. "So, who's doing what for the holidays?"

Su and Daphne seemed a bit ill at ease after the casual display of physical violence from Harry and Hermione, with Su recovering first. "I know I'll be portkeying to Hong Kong for a few days to spend time with my relatives. Most of the family holds dual citizenship but lives there for tax reasons. I'll be back in the country on the 30th, though, if you want to get together for New Years?"

"I'll be at home for the entire holidays, but maybe we can meet there for New Year's?" Daphne pointed at each of them as she went around the compartment. "Su, I doubt your parents want people storming the house right after they get back from vacation. Hermione, no offense, but you're a muggle. Getting there and back would be hard for Su and I because you're not on the floo network. Probably Harry too, even though his mother is a muggleborn and knows how to get around in that world. Harry, you have siblings. Well, I have one, but you have a two, so I'm the lesser evil."

Made sense to him. Harry knew he'd have a lot more fun without having to worry about Jasmine or Rose wandering in to bug him or, even worse, his mother blowing something up in the kitchen and requiring assistance. The logic was sound, but it wasn't entirely his decision. "Well, it sounds like a good idea to me. Su? Hermione?"

Su shrugged and turned toward Hermione. "Up to you. Daphne's right, I don't think my parents would take too kindly to me throwing even a small party right after we get back into England."

"Why's everyone looking at me?" Hermione pointed back at Harry. "I'm at your house from Boxing Day until we go back to school. My parents are coming over for New Year's Eve, but I'm sure they'd rather talk with your parents than baby-sit me, so they probably won't mind if I'm at Daphne's with you."

Harry blinked and sat up a bit straighter at that bit of information. "Wait, what? When did that happen?"

Sighing, Hermione slouched a bit in her seat so she could kick him in the shin. "I knew you weren't actually paying attention to me when I spoke. I told you about that the night my new quidditch pads arrived… and after the game… and the day we had to put our names on the list to go home… and last night…"

"Oh. That'll teach me to just assume you're lecturing and tune you out." Harry grinned and dodged another kick, trapping Hermione's foot with his legs. "So, not that I mind or anything, but why are you moving in for most of the hols?"

Hermione scowled and tugged, trying to free her foot. "I should just leave you wondering, seeing as how I told you that four times already too. But, since I'm feeling generous, I'll tell you a fifth time. When your mother was helping make my pads, Jasmine asked me if I'd come over and let her try her hand at chaser against me sometime. Since your family was covering the materials and your mum was doing all the work, I felt a bit guilty and figured it was the least I could do. Then your mom went and asked if I wanted to come over for part of the Christmas hols, Jasmine looked really excited at the prospect of getting to fly against me sooner rather than later, and so I agreed."

And so it began. As best Harry remembered from his original self's journal, he was the only one of the three children who took after his father and had an interest in flying or sports. So Hermione had obviously caught Jasmine's eye at some point - had his mother come to Hogwarts when he was otherwise occupied to work with Hermione face-to-face and brought the twins? But if his dream was somehow prophetic and Jasmine and Rose would end up sharing Hermione, this might be how they started growing closer. And in his dream, one twin had been a bit more athletic looking than the other, with the other possessing a softer and more voluptuous figure. This would explain why: Jasmine was engaging Hermione using quidditch as an in, and Rose would probably appeal to her bookish side. He could ponder his potentially prophetic dreams later, though. Participate in the conversation at hand now. "Right then. Party at Daphne's house." Harry looked down at his raven-haired limpet. "Assuming your family won't mind, of course."

Daphne grinned up at him in a way that sent shivers down his spine. "Oh, I'm certain they'll approve. After all, Mummy and Daddy are quite interested in meeting you."

Well. That was ominous.

"Harry!" Harry spun around to find a familiar head of red hair cutting through the crowd toward him. His mother looked a bit harried, wrapping an arm around him even as her wand blurred into motion, shrinking his trunk and summoning it before tucking it away into a pocket of her muggle jeans. "Listen, I don't know what you did and I don't want to hear about it now. But unless you want a public scene with the Longbottoms, we need to get out of here, now."

Harry rolled his eyes but allowed himself to be pulled away, waving to his friends. "I'll owl you guys!" They waved back and then Harry turned forward to keep from tripping over something as he was dragged along. "I don't suppose you have a portkey to get us out of here, do you?"

Shaking her head, Lily continued to guide him toward the end of the platform and the complex web of rail lines beyond. "Sorry, sweetie, we were supposed to go by floo but the Longbottoms were between where I found you and the fireplaces. I know you hate it, but I'm going to have to side-along you back to the house."

Like hell she was. If there was one thing Harry hated more than getting dropped on his ass by a portkey trip, it was being dragged through apparition by someone else. So much for his desire to keep this particular ability hidden. "Or we could take the Rensaren Express home." His mother gave him an odd look and Harry flicked his wrist, wand dropping into his hand and quickly transforming into an axe. He waited until they were on the very edge of the platform, not out of concern for the anti-apparition wards but out of a desire not to put a lightning bolt through the roof of the station, before pulling his mom in for a one-armed hug. "Hang on."

"Harry, what are you…" Harry thrust Rensaren into the air, feeling the tingling wash over him as his body turned into electricity and shot up into the air, twisting through the sky before slamming back to earth in Godric's Hollow, depositing he and his mother in the front yard. "…going to do?" She looked around incredulously, spinning in a quick circle before turning to Harry. "How did you..?"

Grinning, Harry held up his axe before reshaping it into a wand and tucking it away. "Magic."

Lily let out a snort of laughter at his flippant answer before composing herself and narrowing her eyes at him. "Now, young man, you have two choices in front of you. Either we're going to sit down in the kitchen and you can tell me why Frank Longbottom was talking about having you put in a holding cell for assaulting his son… or we're going to sit down in the kitchen and have a nice long talk over hot chocolate and biscuits where you tell me everything you know about that wand of yours, and I'll let you and your father handle the Longbottom issue."

"You know, I am in the mood for some hot chocolate…"

By the time James was done at work and had returned home, it was time for a slightly late dinner and the impending scolding was put on hold for the delicious meal of roast chicken, potatoes, and mixed vegetables that Harry and his mother had put together for the family. In the end, the inevitable had to come to pass and Harry found himself escorted into his father's study.

"Now, I know you think you know why you're in here but you're wrong." Harry opened his mouth but his father held a hand up to stall him. "I don't have the time to deal with your discipline; you know that falls to your mother - no matter how often she tries to foist it off on me - because she's the one around to enforce it. There won't be any legal fallout from your little tiff with Frank's boy because your friends gave statements to another auror who was at the station and he backed down after his son's instigating came out."

Oh. Harry blinked stupidly. That was unexpected. Well then, if he wasn't in trouble… "Why do you need to talk to me, then?"

His father sighed, opening one of his desk's drawers and pulling out three thick letters that he then laid on the desk. Removing his glasses, James rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Your grandfather Charlus was a rather forward-thinking wizard for the time and so any families that came sniffing around with an interest in marrying into the family were politely but firmly sent on their way. So I'm not quite sure how to handle my eleven-year old son receiving three marriage contract offers before the halfway point of his first year at Hogwarts."

Leaning in, Harry plucked the three letters off the desk and gave them a slow once over before returning his attention to his father. "What exactly am I supposed to do with them, then?"

"Read them, for one. After that, either write a letter to any you want to immediately decline or visit them to do it in person. If there are any you'd like to keep and entertain, I suppose we just hang onto it." James shrugged, running the tip of his wand over each lens of his glasses before returning them to his face. "If that's the case, I recommend talking to your Uncle Sirius or… Aunt Narcissa… about how to handle things. Like I said, my father took care of things so I never had this problem growing up."

Harry nodded, inwardly smirking at the expression his father had pulled at being forced to say 'Aunt Narcissa'. And here the man thought she was just a friend of his wife's and the spouse of a man he hated. If he only knew. "Alright, I'm going to go upstairs and open these, then try to figure out what work I have left to do over the holidays. Sooner that's done, the more time I have for flying and other fun stuff." His father nodded approvingly and Harry made his way out of the man's office, waving to his mother as he passed through the living room and thundered up the stairs to the second floor.

As soon as his door was shut behind him, Harry took a deep breath and opened the first envelope. Pulling out the letter inside, he unfolded it and skimmed through the fairly standardized opening language until he found the name he was looking for: Daphne Greengrass. Well, that was a surprise in a way that wasn't. After his little display on Samhuinn, of course her parents would be eyeing him as a potential spouse for their darling daughter. But she was one girl. Who were the other two from?

Harry stuffed Daphne's letter back into the envelope and set it aside, staring at the other two suspiciously. Neither had any sort of curse or hex on it, though, so they were theoretically safe enough to open. Picking one of the two at random, he opened it and scanned to see who sent it. Blaise Zabini? Oh wait, he was a she here and so that wasn't quite as disturbing as his first reaction. Still. Dear God. He didn't even know her. Grabbing the other letter, Harry tore it open. What was next? Pansy Parkinson? Romilda Vane? Astoria Greengrass, offered up by her parents in case his affection for their eldest was purely platonic? Both Patil twins?

The answer ended up being one of the few that he didn't guess: Luna Lovegood.

What the bloody hell? 


	13. Chapter 13

13\. Christmas Comes But Once A Year

Stepping out of Twilfit and Tattings, Harry pocketed the shrunken package containing Daphne's new winter cloak - green, to match her eyes - and mentally checked off another person on his Christmas shopping list. His parents were done, as were Hermione, Su, and Daphne. He doubted he was supposed to get stuff for his sisters, since his parents would take care of appeasing them, so that just left Luna.

Looking around, Harry realized he was at the end of the alley and the only two stores he'd yet to visit at this end were a junk shop and Ollivander's, the latter of which Kate Robinson was emerging from with one of the Weasley twins - Lord only knew which - while arguing loudly. Although Luna was a bit odd, or at least his had been, he didn't want to buy her a Christmas present from someone else's trash and decided to retrace his steps back up Diagon Alley to see if anything else caught his attention.

As he passed Gringotts, the Longbottoms emerged, Frank halting and pinning Harry with a fierce glare as Alice yanked their son behind her. Harry raised an eyebrow; did they think he would attack the Boy-Who-Lived out here in broad daylight just for sport? They'd witnessed his questioning this morning for the aurors and read the statements from his friends. As long as their chubby wanker of a son didn't start problems, Harry wouldn't end them. Rolling his eyes, he turned away and made his way through the crowd toward where he promised to meet his mother. She was waiting for him, a warming charm having removed the snow and chill from the seat in front of Fortescue's as she sat reading a book. "Done, sweetie?"

"All but one. Luna Lovegood." Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. After meeting an athletic Hermione, a female Blaise, and numerous other people who weren't quite what he remembered, he wasn't willing to assume he 'knew' Luna at all. So, if he was treating her as an unknown… "How am I supposed to buy a present for somebody I've never met and know nothing about?"

Closing her book, Lily rose to her feet and rolled her shoulders, letting out a truly disturbing cracking noise. Harry shuddered; were humans supposed to be capable of those sorts of sounds? If that's what getting old meant, maybe he'd try to send himself back again in his mid-twenties or so. "Are you sure you want to get her something? After all, you're going over there to decline her offer, not accept it."

Harry nodded, turning and heading toward Flourish and Blotts as his mother fell into step beside him. When in doubt, seek out books. While there likely wasn't a book to help with this situation, there was probably a book Luna would like. "Yeah, but I want to try and let her down easy. I'm going to be spending six years at Hogwarts with her. The last thing I need is her feeling slighted and bitter about being rejected, and turning into a female Neville on me."

That was rather unlikely given how mellow Luna was, but Harry thought it sounded like a believable enough excuse. Unsaid but at the forefront of his mind was their past life together; he didn't want to alienate someone who'd become such a good friend and ally in his old world and likely would become the same again in this one if he didn't manage to bollocks things up by doing something stupid.

"Makes sense. Alright, I haven't seen Luna since back when Selene Lovegood was still stuck pushing a pram everywhere so I'm no help there." Lily pondered for a moment before pointing towards the charms section. "Selene, though, always did fairly well in Charms and DADA… that might have rubbed off on Luna. Or if Luna takes after her father Oddment…"

Just like every other time, Harry couldn't help the chuckle that emerged when he heard the first name of Luna's father. "Oddment?"

Lily's lips quirked up. "His friends call him Odd. So do the rest of us. Odd runs a newspaper called The Quibbler. It's… well, a bit wild. Still, she might be into journalism or creative writing so a book about one of those subjects or even some quills and ink might be good gifts. Other than that, I'm running out of ideas, Harry. I may be a woman, but that doesn't mean I have a telepathic link to every other woman on Earth. Speaking of women, though, what are you going to do about the Zabinis? Present for Blaise as well?"

"I don't need to make a special trip for Blaise, because she's already at school with me. Besides, I can approach her without worrying about scheming parents there. See if I can get her to loosen up and give me some real answers, not whatever her parents have programmed her to say." Flipping through a book quickly, Harry dismissed it and looked around before realizing that the magical bookstore didn't really have anything approaching the second of his mother's three suggestions. Writing was probably an apprenticeship or natural talent profession in the wizarding world, so why would they sell books about it to the common man? He sighed. That made things more complicated, because it was the best idea he'd heard so far. "Can we convert a few galleons and go out onto Charing Cross Road? I want to find a muggle bookstore."

Eyes lighting up, Lily nodded and grabbed him by the hand, hustling him out of Flourish and Blotts. "I haven't been shopping in a muggle store in years. I always had to drag your father and now with you kids along, I've always had to worry about you saying something wrong and attracting attention. Well, my Harry saying something wrong. I'm sure the muggle world is no problem for you, what with what Dumbledore did to you and all." She looked him over with a critical eye before nodding. "You look close enough to pass as-is. Let's get some pounds and I'll show you where this great little shop is…"

When Christmas morning dawned, Harry was more excited than he'd ever been before for the holiday. The closest he'd ever come to a real celebration was in his fifth year, at Grimmauld Place with Sirius and the Weasleys, but now he had his parents, sisters, Remus, and Sirius and his family to celebrate it with. Being included by the Weasleys was all well and good, but it never really made up for his lack of true family… and the more he experienced in this world, the more he became aware of that.

For once he woke up without the assistance of his alarm clock, having not set it the night before. Honestly, Harry had expected his sisters to come and pry him out of bed far before… he stared blearily at the clock before finding his glasses and slipping them on. Wow. He'd made it all the way to nine 'o clock? That was impressive for Christmas Day. Was something wrong?

Harry slid out of bed, hissing a bit in displeasure as his feet hit the cold wooden floors and twisting back and forth to loosen up his back. Then he stopped and let out a rueful chuckle. There'd be no run today, either around the lake at school or around Godric's Hollow. Christmas and all. So instead he tugged on his wand holster, Prue's wand popping out long enough to cast a low-powered warming charm over his body so he wouldn't need slippers or heavier clothing around the house. Time to go investigate the rest of his family.

His first stop was Rose's room, where he stopped in the doorway and chuckled. The poor girl had fallen asleep sitting up leaning against the window while waiting for Father Christmas and was more than likely going to wake up with a hell of a pain in her neck… and with her cheek frozen to the window pane. Harry carefully crept across the room, using another low-powered warming charm on the glass to slowly heat it to room temperature before moving off to check on Jasmine.

Neither of his sisters had made it to bed, Harry discovered upon entering Jasmine's room. Unlike Rose, though, Jasmine's pose was something straight out of his memories of Hermione: face down on a desk with a quill still in hand. Harry carefully took it from her to keep her from scratching or drawing on herself if she twitched in her sleep and was about to move off again when a name caught his eye and brought him to a stop. Hermione? The desk was practically covered in letters in her familiar scrawl and Jasmine had fallen asleep in the middle of a new letter to his teammate. Huh. So they were more closely acquainted than just one meeting. The possibility of his dream being prophetic was starting to seem more likely by the day… which was fine with him. If everything came to pass, learning to live with his best friend hooking up with both his sisters simultaneously was a small price to pay for what he'd be getting.

Deciding to leave her to sleep - at least for now - Harry made his way out of his sister's room and headed downstairs, wandering into the cold and quiet kitchen. After getting a fire going in the empty stone fireplace, he decided to do his parents a favor and got to work cooking breakfast without waiting for his mother to join him. Having prepared ahead and ordered a few extra ingredients the day before via floo, Harry got to work on a variant of the traditional full English that he remembered seeing on Rosmerta's menu up in Hogsmeade: poached eggs, sautéed mushrooms, black pudding, Lorne sausage, bacon, potato scones, and thick slices of whole grain toast.

The first sign of another conscious person in the house came nearly half an hour later when a thump and the scrape of a chair heralded the arrival of his mother as she stumbled into it, wandering blearily towards the counter. "Coffee…" Harry rolled his eyes and snickered, but dutifully poured a mug for his mother and handed it to you. "Thank you, sweetie."

"If your original son hadn't spent eleven years freeloading, I'd be talking about charging for this kind of service, you know." Harry flicked his wand, amused to see that his mother still instinctively opened her mouth to chastise him before shutting it, and levitated the platters of prepared food toward the kitchen table. "Are Dad and the twins coming down or are we starting without them?"

Shrugging, Lily pulled out her wand and tapped her throat before turning her away from him. "James!" Harry winced, clapping his hands over his ears as his mother's supercharged voice boomed through the house. "Get down here now and eat some breakfast or I'll let the kids eat it all!"

Harry groaned and threw himself into the chair beside his mother, poking her in the ribs with his wand before putting it away. "Thanks, Mum. I couldn't have done that myself." A moment later, his father came stumbling down the hall half-asleep, his sisters stuck behind his staggering form. James easily entered the kitchen but a Potter pile-up occurred as Jasmine and Rose ran into Harry's barrier. He'd set up the barrier earlier using a weaker variant of the infamous Age Line, mostly to keep the girls from sneaking in and picking at the food before it was done and set out for the family. "Erm, oops. I should probably take that down, huh?"

"You shouldn't be doing it at all, Harry." Sighing in annoyance, James pulled his wand out of the waistband of his sleep pants and cancelled Harry's spell, allowing the twins to enter the kitchen. "Just because you've discovered the flaw in the magical detection grid that purebloods take advantage of doesn't mean you should be ignoring the rules against underage magic. Lily, I'm surprised you haven't reigned him in."

Lily's grip around her fork tightened momentarily before relaxing. "Yes, because we both know I'm the only adult in this household. Now that I know about the loophole and how easy it is for purebloods to get around something I had to work hard to avoid being held back by, I really can't find it in me to give a damn. You want him punished, either do it yourself or tell Hopkirk's people."

Coughing loudly to get his parents' attention, Harry waggled his finger. "If you children don't simmer down right this instant, I swear to God I will turn this car around." Lily burst into laughter, putting down her fork to avoid flinging food by accident, even as her husband just stared at Harry in utter confusion. "Seriously, let's enjoy Christmas breakfast now and we can sign you up for couples' therapy later."

"Maybe I do need to start getting more involved with the discipline around here." Pushing his plate back a bit, James leaned forward and pointed a finger across the table at Harry. "I don't know what gives you the idea that you can talk to me like that, young man, but I am your father and…"

"_Silencio_." James's mouth continued to move soundlessly for a few moments before what had happened sunk in and he turned to glare at a rather nonplussed Lily. "Took you long enough to remember that. Now, Harry's right. Let's enjoy Christmas like the family we're supposed to be and you and I can talk things over tonight after the children go to bed." Lily returned to her breakfast, a mushroom halfway to her mouth when James pounded a fist against the table before pointing to his throat. "Eat your breakfast and maybe I'll take it off by the time Sirius gets here."

James continued to scowl even as he pulled his plate back to him and returned to eating. The twins looked shocked at witnessing their parents' bickering and so Harry decided to jump in and distract them from the pair's marital discord. "By the way, you two are on dish duty this morning."

Rose pouted, looking to her mother for help before turning back to Harry. "Me? What did I do to deserve that? And you're not the boss of us anyways!"

"I had to come unfreeze your cheek from the window before you woke up because you fell asleep there and Jasmine, I had to take a quill out of your hand this morning or you would have woken up with streaks on your face." Harry gestured over at the heaping pile of pots and pans in the sink. "It means you two owe me and since mom and I cook for you all the time and she does the dishes most days, you can do them once for her."

Lily grinned and raised her mug in approval. "And I'm the boss of you two and I heartily endorse this idea. No chores, at least for the morning? Happy Christmas to me!"

An hour later, breakfast was gone, the twins had grumbled their way through most of the cleaning, James had regained his voice, and the family adjourned to the sitting room to open presents. Almost right on cue, the fireplace flared green and the Blacks came piling out, followed by Remus. There was a bit of laughter as poor Cassie came rocketing out like a brown-haired torpedo, mowing down Harry and sending them to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The blushing pair got themselves sorted out in short order and James and Sirius began passing out presents to their proper recipients as the extended family settled in around the Christmas tree.

One of Harry's first presents was a fairly sizable stack of books, courtesy of his mother. Checking the spines, Harry discovered they were the books he'd left sitting in his room after emptying his mother's school trunk: his textbooks for the next six years of Hogwarts - save any electives he might choose to take that she hadn't - charmed and restored back into pristine condition for him. Their eyes met and she mimed opening a book, so he did, finding a piece of faded parchment inside the cover of the top book. Eyes widening, he looked back up at Lily, who mouthed 'later'. His mother had just given him the Marauder's Map. That was going to be one interesting conversation later.

From his father, who couldn't manage to put on a polite façade for company and simply stared as Harry opened the box with his name on it, he received brand new quidditch pads to use instead of the battered ones the school loaned out to students who didn't have their own. Harry raised an eyebrow at the odd look of them; they weren't anywhere near as big as Hermione's hockey-adapted keeper pads, but they weren't as slim as he was used to either. Lily correctly interpreted his expression, though, and had an explanation. "They're made from the same foam as your friend's keeper pads. Skinnier, obviously. Then we added dragonhide over them and did the cosmetic stuff. They're not as sturdy as your friend's pads, but they're better than what anyone else at Hogwarts has according to your father."

"Cool. Thanks, Dad. And you too, Mum." Given the complexity of both presents - and the hidden second present inside his mother's - Harry didn't expect to receive anything else from them and therefore wasn't disappointed when nothing else appeared with his name on it. He also had gifts upstairs with Su, Hermione, and Daphne's names on them, so he knew he'd be getting a few more things when they exchanged gifts over the next few days.

He'd forgotten about Sirius and Amy, though. "Alright, Harry m'boy. I thought about putting my name on the present I helped your father with, but he charmed the tag so I couldn't come near it. Then I thought about piggybacking on your mum's gift, but I couldn't find where she was hiding it and she hexed me for trying to find it. So… after a lot of debate, I came up with the perfect present for you." Pulling out his wand, Sirius gave it a grand wave and wrapping paper exploded from the end, twisting and wiggling with a life of its own as it surrounded Cassie and bound her, followed by a bright red and gold ribbon to complete the look. "Happy Christmas!"

Cassie wriggled inside the wrapping paper, failing to free herself but succeeding in tipping herself over onto Harry's lap. "Daaaaad!"

Wincing under the dual glares from his wife and daughter, Sirius sighed and vanished the ribbon and paper. "Oh come on, we all know she has a ridiculously strong crush on him. It was funny." Amy just kept glaring at him and Sirius winced. "I'm going to be sleeping on the couch tonight, aren't I?" She nodded. "Bugger." Turning his attention back to Harry, Sirius smiled sheepishly. "No, actually, your present isn't here. My old bat of a mother croaked a few years back and so I can finally get into the family home. We had a pretty extensive library and since you seem intent on turning into your Uncle Remus… I might as well let you grab some good books. Better stuff in the library at Grimmauld Place than you'll find in any of your schoolbooks, I assure you."

"Sirius Black! You are not going to let my son go taking books from your nightmare of a family! Dark wizards, the lot of them! Who knows what he could end up bringing home?"

"Oh come on, Lily! I came out of that house and I turned out all right. Besides, I'll make sure it's nothing too bad. We actually use some of the same spell books in auror training these days. There's no harm in letting Harry learn to recognize dark magic and how to counter it."

"You are most certainly not 'all right' if you think I'm letting my son near that filth. You're a father. You should know better! Would you want Cassie near those kinds of books?"

Harry followed the conversation back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, only stopping when a hand tapped him on the shoulder. Looking back, he found Remus grinning at him and holding out a hastily wrapped present. "It's not quidditch pads, six years worth of school books, or a trip to Grimmauld Place, but I hope you like it."

Unwrapping it, Harry found a small box and inside was… a pocket watch? Perfect. Now he could return the old one he'd taken from his father before the trip to Hogwarts back in September. There was something odd about the inside of the lid, though: a series of tiny crystals and runes formed an array that even he was unfamiliar with. "What's this?"

"That… is something I discovered in my last days at Hogwarts. Each professor carries a small piece of jewelry with them, usually a ring or necklace, that connects them to the castle and lets them give or take points. I found a way to send out tiny pulses of magic that would resonate with the jewelry… like a bat's echolocation." Remus took the pocket watch from Harry, closing the lid and letting it rest face up on his palm. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Magic pulsed and flickered, indistinct and ghostly images that were vaguely humanoid cycling in midair about a foot above Remus's hand before disappearing. "Well, it's not very impressive here in Godric's Hollow. When you get back to school, though, it'll show you if any professors are nearby, how far away they are, and in what direction." The ghostly figures flickered by again and Remus looked down at the watch. "Mischief managed."

Harry took the pocket watch eagerly and tucked it into his pocket. "Thanks, Uncle Remus! This is going to make it a lot easier to track down teachers after class if I have questions about assignments." Remus gave him an uncertain smile as Sirius and James groaned, which was exactly what Harry wanted. He now had a method of tracking the professors in addition to the Marauder's Map. If he could only find his father's cloak, he'd be in business when he got back to school…

Harry was curled up in a chair in the sitting room with one of the books his mother had cleaned up for him, reading her thoughts on how mental clarity and willpower affected the summoning of objects, when a crack alerted him to the return of his mother. Peering over the top of his glasses, he grinned at the vaguely green tinge to Hermione's skin. "Enjoy the trip?"

"I'm going to vomit on your shoes, Harry James Potter." Hermione wrapped both arms around her midsection, flopping limply into a chair beside him and whining pitifully. "That was the most horrible thing I've ever experienced. And adult wizards do that all the time? I think I'll be working somewhere with a fireplace I can use, thank you very much. If I had to do that at least twice a day, I might as well stop eating."

Chuckling, Harry closed his book and set it on the floor beside his chair before leaning over to pat Hermione on the shoulder. "I've heard it's better when you're apparating yourself instead of getting dragged side-along. You'll have to ask my father, though, because I doubt my mum had many people popping her around before she was old enough to do it herself. Muggleborn and all that."

Hermione nodded, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling as she took deep breaths in and out. "God I hope so. Because that was just… urgh. Please tell me that's not how we're planning to get to King's Cross on the fifth?"

Actually, Harry wasn't entirely sure on that front. He wasn't sure his parents knew, either, given that James was working and Lily could only side-along one of them at a time. Two trips? Or was she counting on Harry and Rensaren to give them a lift to the station again? "Not sure. Portkey, maybe. Or floo. Apparition would be complicated, so it's down there with driving as far as likeliness."

"Oh, thank the Lord." Hermione chuckled and turned her head to look over at Harry. "So, get anything good for Christmas?"

Harry shrugged and leaned over, retrieving his book and holding it up for her to see. "Some books from Mum… some books from Sirius… pocket watch from Remus… some quidditch pads that match yours from Dad… marriage contracts from Daphne, Blaise Zabini, and a girl named Luna Lovegood…"

Nodding along absently, Hermione's eyes went wide at the last bit and Harry knew he had her full attention. "Wait, what? You lot still use marriage contracts? I mean, I know Daphne mentioned it a few times but I've never really brought it up with her and so I thought it was a joke or something. One of those pureblood things where I just nod, smile, and pretend I get why you lot are laughing at something stupid-sounding."

"Not all of us do. My grandparents were pretty modern and so they took care of all the requests that came in so Dad could meet someone on his own and marry for love. Mostly it's the really old-fashioned pureblood families that do it… the Malfoys, Parkinsons, Blacks, Crabbes, Goyles, and so on." Harry made a fist and then held out one finger of his other hand a few inches away. "The Greengrasses fall pretty much on the edge… they respect tradition but exist outside of the tight-knit clump of other traditional families. Works out pretty well for them when the outside families are experiencing an upswing, like they are at the moment, and keeps them from getting as inbred as the Crabbes and Goyles."

Hermione nodded again to show her understanding before biting her lip, contemplating something. "And the Zabinis and Lovegoods? I know Blaise is that dark-skinned Ravenclaw girl… she was the last one to be sorted in our year. You were watching her pretty closely. Never heard of the Lovegoods, although Luna Lovegood sounds like she should be a Bond girl."

While he was familiar with the series from his time at the Dursleys and a trip or two to the cinema with Hermione and Ron before things went south, Harry knew he wasn't supposed to know about James Bond and his lovely ladies and so he kept his mouth shut on that particular facet of things. "According to my mother, Luna's father is Oddment Lovegood, publisher of _The Quibbler_. Her mother does some wild experimental stuff with charms and defensive magic. Neither really strikes me as the traditional type from what little I've heard, so I'm drawing a blank there."

"So you're not going to even entertain the thought of taking any of these girls up on their offers, right?" Hermione waited a beat and when Harry didn't respond fast enough for her tastes, sat up and glared at him. "Arranging marriages is a barbaric and antiquated concept and you shouldn't even be thinking about it, Harry Potter!"

Harry chuckled and waggled his eyebrows. "Have you seen Mrs. Greengrass? Daphne already looks a lot like her… if she grows up to look like that, investing in her now might not be such a bad idea."

Thankfully Hermione's righteous anger over the notion of women as saleable property kept her from realizing that Harry should be a bit on the young side to appreciate women in a blatantly sexual way and she leaned over, slapping him hard upside the head. Then she paused, thought for a moment longer, and slapped him again. "No. Bad Harry. We don't objectify our women. We respect our women."

She then delivered a third slap, just for good measure.

Harry was rescued from further abuse by a redheaded rocket that attacked Hermione, hugging her tight before backing away and blushing. "Hermione! You're here!" Jasmine bounced on her toes, tossing a quaffle from one hand to the other as her eyes bounced back and forth between Hermione and the back door. "C'mon! I can show you our pitch!"

"Erm…" Hermione looked over at Harry, who gave her a little shrug. Not that he wasn't glad to have her there, but he was used to Hermione spending most of her time with Su while they were at school. He wasn't going to complain if she spent a bit of time with his sister. She'd be there non-stop for the foreseeable future; there'd be plenty of time to talk to her later, after Jasmine tired herself out. "Well, if Harry doesn't care, I suppose it sounds like fun. My broom is shrunken in one of my bags along with my pads… although I reckon I don't need those, since we won't be using bludgers."

Watching the pair disappear off in search of one of his parents to activate the complex web of spells on the backyard that would turn it from frozen mess to quidditch pitch, Harry waited a moment before ducking into the hall and then heading up the stairs. While it wasn't on the same level as his former link with Voldemort, Harry could almost always feel roughly where his mother was and use that sixth sense to track her down. It took another flight of stairs and a visit to the musty attic to find her this time, knee deep in boxes of old school things. "Mum? I think I'm going to head over to the Lovegoods' home for a bit."

Lily looked up, a concerned expression on her face. "Is everything okay? I just got back with your friend. Why aren't you spending time with her?"

"Jasmine stole her."

"Ah." Moving to the end of the attic, Lily peered out the window. Harry joined her, watching as his father led Jasmine and Hermione out onto the pitch. He tapped away at something near the base of the three rings, causing an orange dome of energy to ripple outward, removing the snow. Hermione looked around in wonder before shedding her coat, and she and Jasmine chattered excitedly before mounting their respective brooms and taking to the air. "It's not a problem, is it? Jasmine's just excited to have someone to play with who's a decent keeper. She really wants to make the house team when she gets to Hogwarts."

As he watched Jasmine throw the quaffle at Hermione, looping around behind the rings as the brunette caught it and lingering to stare at his friend, Harry waited for his mother to put two and two together. As the silence stretched on and on, he finally decided to give her a little nudge to see what she thought of his suspicions. "She's chasing, but I don't think it has anything to do with quidditch. Just out of curiosity, Mum, when did Jasmine start on her little quidditch princess kick? Say… around the time she first met the lovely Miss Granger?"

Lily nodded, watching things outside with a critical eye for a moment before understanding dawned. "No…"

"She's Cassie's age, so it's not that out there, is it? And Cassie has been crushing on me for a while now. I know one when I see one and Jasmine definitely reminds me of Cassie with red hair and a broomstick right now. Not to mention I've got someone who'll be in her class next year sending me a declaration of interest already." Patting his mother on the back, Harry grinned. "But my little sister's crushes aren't any of my business. Can I go take my present over to Luna?" Lily nodded absently and Harry waited a moment to see if she'd speak before turning and walking away. Down the rickety stairs from the attic, into his room to grab a present, then down another flight of stairs to the ground floor. Taking a pinch of floo powder, he tossed it into the fire and watched it burn green for a moment before stepping in. "The Rookery!"

Floo travel was a sensation that, no matter how old or powerful he became, Harry still detested. And still after all this time, he was pants at sticking the landing. Reaching his destination, Harry dropped to his knees as he came skidding out of the fire, unable to emerge in an entirely controlled manner but not wanting to come out like a rogue bludger. Light tinkling laughter greeted his arrival, and Harry looked up to lay eyes on Luna Lovegood for the first time in this universe. "Hullo, Harry Potter." 


	14. Chapter 14

14\. Critical Conversations

"Hullo, Harry Potter."

Harry looked Luna up and down slowly before releasing a barely audible sigh and waving at her. Luna looked remarkably similar to how he was used to her appearing, with her wand tucked behind her ear - how she had one already at her age, though, was a mystery to him - and pale blonde hair. It made him wonder, then, why the Luna in his dream had strawberry blonde hair. Perhaps she'd take to using cosmetic charms for vanity's sake down the road? Then again, there was nothing to say the dream was prophetic and Luna was supposed to have anything other than blonde hair, despite the whole Hermione and Jasmine thing, so he decided to put that out of his mind for the time being. Struggling to his feet, he brushed himself off before smiling. "Luna Lovegood, I presume?"

Shaking her head, the blonde pointed over at the doorway. "No, I'm her identical twin sister, Soleil Shagwell. She's older and so she gets to bear Daddy's last name, while I'm going to make my husband take my name when we get married so I can continue Mummy's family line." So wait, Luna's mother's maiden name had been Selene Shagwell? Wow. That was even worse than Lovegood when it came to bad innuendo fodder. "Anyways, Luna's still upstairs prettying herself up for you. She's quite excited to be meeting you in person for the first time." Harry looked over at where Soleil was pointing and waited… and waited… and waited. When he heard another round of soft giggles, he knew he'd been had. "Oh, that was really quite amusing. No, I'm Luna. What's the matter, Harry? Am I not to your liking, that you're so eager to dismiss me?"

Oh, that was dangerous territory and Harry knew it. It was like when Ginny asked him if a certain pair of robes made her look fat, or if the muggle jeans she'd bought on a trip out with Hermione made her arse look big. He was well trained by now: any appearance-related question from a woman was to be answered with as many lies as necessary to preserve one's manhood.

The problem was, Luna was spectacularly good at telling when he was lying… or at least the one he was familiar with was. That and she looked just as bizarre as he was used to. Actually, she was a bit better than in his home universe, he realized after a second, more thorough inspection. Her entire outfit was shades of blue, from a dark blue cardigan to a paler blue shirt beneath and matching ankle-length skirt. The butterbeer cork necklace and radish earrings were gone too, amazingly enough. While he hadn't liked that she'd taken them off for Slughorn's party since they were a part of who she was, they weren't a part of this Luna evidently and he had no problem admitting she was better for it.

Luna coughed and Harry blushed as he realized that he'd probably been standing there doing a fair impression of Crabbe for at least a minute. "Erm, there's nothing wrong with you, Luna. But my younger sisters are twins, you know. I know how grumpy girls can get when you pay attention to the wrong twin. I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with someone who sent me a marriage contract. Seems like I managed that anyways, though."

"You have a left foot and a right foot, Harry. You have no wrong foot to get off on… and I'm not entirely sure what you'd be getting off of, even if you did." Luna considered that for a moment longer before shrugging and rising from the chair she'd dragged in front of the fireplace. "At any rate, we have things to discuss."

Blinking, Harry looked around in search of Oddment Lovegood's distinctive shock of pale blonde hair, rather reminiscent of the pictures of Albert Einstein he'd seen in primary school. "We do? Not that I think you're property or don't matter in this situation, Luna, but isn't the negotiation generally between either the two fathers or the bride-to-be's father and the prospective husband?"

Luna just waved her hand dismissively before grabbing his, leading him from the kitchen to the sitting room, where a plate of biscuits and some milk was waiting for them on a table in front of a couch that appeared to have been tie-dyed at some point. "It'd be a bit awkward for you to meet with my father, considering he doesn't know what he signed for me was what it was."

"Wait a minute… what?"

Sighing, Luna rolled her eyes as she forced Harry to sit down on the couch, taking a seat next to him. "Well I didn't think he'd agree to it if I told him what I was going to do. So I waited until he was busy working on _The Quibbler_, then brought it in and told him it was something Mummy needed signed for Gringotts. It looked so official that he didn't even blink before signing where I pointed. And voila. One marriage contract, ready to send. And we have plenty of owls, so the sending itself was easy."

Harry tried to wrap his brain around that one. A ten year-old girl was conspiring to marry him and tricking her father into going along with it. It boggled the mind. Even for someone used to dealing with Luna. Wanting to buy himself some more time, he held out the present he'd bought for her. "I got you something for Christmas."

"Oh! Thank you! I didn't get you anything… although I'm supposedly trying to give you myself, so I suppose that counts for something." Luna took the wrapped book from him and carefully removed the ribbon followed by the wrapping paper, laying each on the table and smoothing them out before examining her new possession. "_Comma Sutra: Position Yourself for Success With Good Grammar._" Luna opened the book and flipped through the first two or three pages until she landed on the table of contents. "Assume the Position: Nouns, Pronouns, and Verbs. Bondage 101: Conjunctions. Four Play: Four Common Grammar Headaches. Sex and the Single Sentence." Grinning, Luna looked up over the top of the book at him. "How delightfully witty, Harry. Thank you!"

Harry waved off the thank you, blushing a bit. "Honestly, I'm a little surprised you get the references. I thought it was just something you'd appreciate as a writing tool for now, and you'd smirk a bit when you get older. I mean, you're a bit young for that, aren't you?"

"You understood the references and bought it for me. Aren't you a bit young for that too?" Touché. Luna twisted to kneel on the couch and held one arm out over the back. "Melvil. Kama Sutra, please." Harry turned and watched as the bookshelf shuddered, an arm emerging from the side and grabbing one book off the middle shelf, tossing it through the air to Luna. "Thank you, Melvil." Plunking herself down again, Luna held it out to Harry. "It's quite an interesting read. There are five chapters on the acquisition of a wife, and even a chapter on how the chief wife should behave compared to the lesser wives in a polygamous marriage."

Eyeing the book like a particularly poisonous snake - or worse, given he could talk a snake out of biting him - Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Doesn't that have all of the positions for… you know… in it too?" The idea of a ten year-old reading a book like that often enough to recite facts about its contents was bloody frightening and more than a little disturbing from a social perspective. He knew his mother would have a kneazle if she found him with something like that, much less Jasmine or Rose.

Luna nodded, flipping the book open and running her finger down the page before coming to a certain passage. "It does. According to Daddy, I was from the night they experimented with the 'kulisha' position. Mummy smacked him in the head for telling me that and told him he was corrupting my innocent mind."

"Err, right." Well, someone had certainly warped her mind. Harry had always assumed it was the death of her mother that drove Luna to be slightly batty, but clearly that wasn't the case given she was still a bit left of center here with both parents alive. Maybe it was just the proximity to her bizarre father? Something in her breeding? Aunt Marge's comment long ago about the bitch and the pup came back to him… he'd never met Selene Lovegood. Perhaps after he did, things would become clearer. "So, getting back to the reason I'm here…"

Reaching back over her shoulder, Luna nodded. "Melvil. Interview kit, please." There was a whoosh of air behind them and then Luna brought her hand forward with a wooden box in it, setting it out beside the biscuits and withdrawing a piece of parchment and a Quick-Quotes Quill. Harry gave it an odd look and Luna raised an eyebrow at him. "You didn't think I actually wanted to marry you, did you? I'm only ten, Harry. And we've never even met before."

Harry groaned, rubbing his temples. He was being repeatedly outwitted by a preteen version of Luna Lovegood. He was deeply, deeply ashamed of himself. "Alright. So if you're not serious about wanting to marry me, why send the letter? You're not the only person who sent me one, you know, so yes I was thinking you were serious."

"Oh. No, I'm not Sirius. He's your father's partner." Wow. Now Harry knew how Professor McGonagall had felt when he'd dropped that one on her. That was a really stupid joke. Luna fiddled with the royal blue Quick-Quotes Quill for a moment before leaning back. "So, there were other girls sent you marriage contracts? Who?"

After eyeing the quill for a moment, Harry figured there was no harm in answering. After all, copies of all contracts sent were archived at the Ministry of Magic and she could find the answer there if he was unwilling to part with it. "Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass." The quill scribbled something onto the parchment and his gaze bounced from it to Luna and back. "I'm very, very confused."

Luna took one of the biscuits, nibbling on it while eyeing him like a particularly bizarre animal she'd write about for _The Quibbler_. "Hmm. Mummy was right. Men really do need to have everything explained to them if you want them to keep up." Ouch. Misandrist preteen Luna. This was certainly boding well for a pleasant future friendship. "Do you happen to know what my Daddy does for a living, Harry Potter?"

"He publishes _The Quibbler_."

"Good, so you do know a little something. Well, I want to work for him as a reporter when I grow up. He doesn't take me seriously yet." Perhaps that was because she was ten, but Harry was wise enough to keep that to himself. "So I decided I'd get an interview with the boy who electrocuted three mountain trolls and saved the Samhuinn festivities at Hogwarts." Luna reached into her wooden box and held up a set of papers. "But if I wanted to do a formal interview request, I'd have to owl these to your parents because you're a minor still. Even though I'm a minor too. And I've heard from my sources at Hogwarts that you're really quite mature, so I thought that if I tried sending a marriage contract to you, you'd handle it directly instead of sending your father and I could have an informal interview. Like when a reporter runs into a person coming out of court. And now here you are."

It was convoluted, far too advanced for a ten year-old… and utterly brilliant. Harry shook his head. He'd fallen for it, too, which made it even worse. He revised his estimation of this Luna upward another notch or two; she would most definitely bear watching and active courting, as a friend if nothing more. She was like Hermione on acid, a fearsome combination of brilliance and non-linear thinking that had the potential to shatter boundaries and tear away the rules of magic that the wizarding world clung to if properly guided. Harry leaned back against a pillow that wriggled and patted his shoulders at it moved into a position most comfortable for him. "So let me get this straight, just to make sure we're on the same page here. You don't want to marry me, you just want to interview me?"

Groaning, Luna rested her head in her hands. "Now I know why Mummy says she's the brains of this operation. Men really are thick."

"Hey!"

"Moving on to the next question… is it true that you carry and use Rensaren, the legendary wand of Prue Thordotter?" Harry's eyes widened and Luna shrugged innocently. "I have eyes and ears everywhere, Harry. Now answer the question. Is that or is that not Rensaren tucked up your sleeve?"

Harry held his hands up in surrender. "I plead the Fifth?" Oh wait. He was a pureblood-raised half-blood. He wasn't supposed to know anything about America outside of that it was where 'Yanks' were and that Salem had a school there that accepted all kinds of 'riff-raff', also known as mixed-heritage students.

Thankfully Luna seemed more focused on tearing his argument apart than figuring out how he could make said argument, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes at him. "You're not American, Harry. You're not protected by the Constitution."

"You're not American either!" Harry threw his hands up in the air, flopping back against the couch. "How do you even know that reference?"

"I'm a woman. I know everything."

For the rest of the afternoon, Harry lounged in the sitting room with Luna and let her bombard him with questions about his family life, school life, quidditch performance, and the troll incident. Given the Longbottoms already knew about his wand and likely couldn't keep a secret to save their lives even if they wanted to, Harry had no qualms about sharing what little he knew about Rensaren. It did make a rather interesting story, after all, and Luna had put a lot of work into being able to get close enough to him to get a story. He might as well reward her initiative.

At one point, a mid-thirties doppelgänger of Luna complete with wand tucked behind her ear wandered into the room with a tea service, kissed the top of Luna's head, and wandered back out. So that was Selene Lovegood née Shagwell. Harry snorted. Oh yes, Luna was definitely her parents' child. Then again, so was he, so did he really have room to laugh?

As the sun dwindled and dipped below the horizon, though, Harry realized poor Hermione was probably being run well and truly ragged by Jasmine and so he decided to take pity on his friend and return to the house. After watching Luna pitch the declaration of intent into the roaring fire and promising to owl her, Harry took a pinch of floo powder and flicked it into the flames. "Potter Place!"

After another twisting, gut-wrenching trip through the floo, Harry came flying out and rolled across the kitchen floor before coming to rest on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Three different laughs greeted his arrival and Harry turned his head, finding not only Hermione and Jasmine but Su as well. "Wotcher."

That just set off Hermione and Jasmine again, leaving Su to roll her eyes before standing up, walking over to give Harry a hand up off the floor. "Sheng dan kuai le."

"Gesundheit."

Su rolled her eyes again, waiting till he was on his feet before pulling away. "Well, you tried at the start of the year. I figured you would have at least put in the effort for the holidays too. Fine. Happy Christmas." Walking back over, she seated herself next to Hermione and crossed her legs, drawing a glare from Jasmine as Hermione leaned over to pat her friend's hand. "So, have a pleasant afternoon with your bride-to-be? Daphne's going to be furious, you know. I'm pretty sure she thinks she has first dibs."

Sighing, Harry wandered over to the refrigerator and withdrew a plate with some slices of turkey on it, bringing it over to the counter so he could make a sandwich. "Funny, Su. No, Luna actually sent me a contract as… well, bait for a trap, I suppose is the best way to describe it. She just wanted to get me over to her house so she could interview me for _The Quibbler_, but didn't want to try and get formal interview request papers past my parents."

"But if you just so happened to drop by her house for some reason and answered a few questions she asked you… she wouldn't need to get your parents' approval." Su nodded slowly, her grin growing wider. "Bloody brilliant that is. Well at least you know she won't be headed for Gryffindor and you'll be safe at school next year."

Slapping a few slices of turkey between two pieces of bread, Harry returned the plate to the fridge and hopped up to sit on the counter. "Oh yes, because a fearsome intellect is definitely a sign you're guaranteed to end up in Ravenclaw. Just out of curiosity, Su, what color is your tie at school? And Hermione's?" The diminutive Asian blushed at that and Harry chalked up a point for himself. "Besides, after today? I'd guess Slytherin over Ravenclaw. Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor in order of likelihood."

Harry raised his sandwich to his mouth, only to have it yanked away by an invisible magical hand as his mother breezed into the kitchen. "Oh no you don't. You're going to ruin your dinner." Putting the sandwich on a plate and throwing a stasis charm over it, she tucked it away on an unused portion of the counter and then pointed at the fridge. "Now help me make our dinner."

Lips quirking upward, Harry slid off the counter and walked over to reopen the fridge, contemplating the contents. "Are we going shopping, serving leftovers, or should we floo out for take-away tonight? Because there's nothing in here that we can use to build a meal from scratch."

"What? You can't be serious." Harry opened his mouth and Lily held up one hand. "I swear young man, if you make a comment related to your godfather, I will have you scrubbing out the loo with one of the spare toothbrushes your friend brought." Harry's mouth snapped shut and he pantomimed zipping his lips shut. "Now, there's seriously nothing decent to eat? I could have sworn I went shopping this week…"

Harry held the door open so his mother could peer inside. "Did you take Hermione into account when you went shopping? Girl eats more than Dad. If I hadn't seen the scar where the bone popped out, I'd swear her leg was hollow." Hermione returned a sweet smile followed by a rude gesture, which Harry sent right back at her. Except while Hermione escaped unscathed, he found himself slapped upside the head. "Oww! Mum!"

Shrugging unapologetically, Lily brushed past and went over to the fireplace, reaching into a vase and pulling out a bundle of fliers for local restaurants. "I don't care if she started it, she's a girl and you're going to be a bit more respectful than your father was at your age if it kills me. And Hermione's only been here for a late lunch so far, so you can't blame the lack of food on her. Yet."

"So wait a minute, because she's a girl and I'm not, she can flip me off but I can't do the same?" Harry huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's so unfair."

"Life sucks and then a bludger hits you in the crotch." Hermione shrugged and grinned impishly. "By the way, Harry, have I told you lately that you have the coolest mother ever?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Uh huh. You just like her because she lets you get away with murder. Kinda like how Snape treats his Slytherins." He watched his mum flinch at the comparison to the greasy-haired bastard and chalked up another point for himself. Not that he minded getting in trouble for doing something wrong, but maybe she'd be a little less eager to enforce double standards and wave the whole 'girl power' banner in the future. Merlin knew Hermione started enough shit, and if he was the one getting punished every time… he'd go nuts in very short order. "Anyways… dinner? If you're not going to let me eat my sandwich, can we get moving on that? I'm hungry, Mum."

It was actually Su who came to his stomach's rescue, getting up and fishing a red and gold flier out of the pile that she then offered up to his mother. "My aunt and uncle run a Chinese restaurant. We could floo them to order dinner and I bet they'd offer you a discount because I'm here. Well, assuming I have permission to stay for dinner? Hermione wasn't clear on that when she invited me to floo over."

"Of course you can stay. Although Hermione, in the future it would be nice if you asked before inviting strangers into my house." The muggleborn at least had the grace to blush at the rebuke and Lily nodded before examining the flier. "I've heard good things about the Changs' cooking, though. I've never had a chance to try it because James doesn't like Chinese, but he's working tonight. Working on Boxing Day. That just seems unnatural. Alright, everyone figure out what you want and I'll floo over there with the order."

After a bit of consideration and some advice from Su, Harry selected Mao's braised pork and left Su and Hermione to try and explain the cuisine to his younger sisters as he and his mother took their leave. As soon as they entered the sitting room, Harry flicked his wand and summoned the book hiding the Marauder's Map to him, causing Lily to sigh. "You want an explanation, I assume?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at her before opening the book and pulling out the Map. Tapping it with his wand, he repeated its infamous activation phrase. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." The Marauder's Map surged to life, drawing out a map of the castle and the few professors and students who had opted to remain there for the holidays. "I'll be damned. It works from here." Harry shook his head before tapping the map again. "Mischief managed. Actually, I'm curious why you're giving it to me. Not that I mind or anything; it's dead useful. But out of the two of you, I would have pictured Dad as being the one to pass this on to me."

"I wanted to give it to you before he remembered he had it and passed it on to either you or one of the girls." Lily shrugged, tracing a finger over the parchment slowly. "I figured if I gave it to you myself, you might actually use it for something halfway responsible. Better that than your father trying to pressure one of you into starting a second generation of Marauders, at least in my opinion."

Even though he knew exactly what she was talking about, Harry forced himself to look curious. After all, it was one thing to hear it from outsiders but quite another to hear his own mother's thoughts. "Why?"

Lily sighed. "I've told you this before… your father wasn't a particularly pleasant person when he was younger. He was a bully, a braggart, and a prankster, and I hated it. I abhorred 'Prongs' of the 'Marauders' and I was very happy when he finally grew up into James Potter and started to leave that sort of thing behind. I'd prefer to see that side of him stay gone and so the more pieces of Prongs I can get rid of, the better."

"Got it. In that case, I don't suppose you know where Dad's old invisibility cloak is, do you?" Harry gulped when Lily slowly turned and fixed him with a very intense look. "Oh. You never knew he owned one, did you?" She shook her head. "Oh. Bugger. I'm… going to go see how that dinner order is coming." Harry ran towards the kitchen, his mother right behind him.

She wasn't after him, he discovered, when she surged past and grabbed some floo powder, tossing it into the fireplace. "James Potter's Office!" Throwing herself into the green flames, Lily disappeared into the network, whirling towards London and the Ministry of Magic.

Jasmine let out a low whistle. "I think Dad's in trouble."

Rose nodded. "We should probably get out the sheets and pillow for the couch." Then something occurred to her. "Wait. Where are we going to put Hermione then?"

Fortunately, Jasmine already had a solution to that problem. "My room!"

Oh, this was going to end well…

As the evening bled into night, the family enjoyed dinner before splitting up the way they always did to pursue individual amusements. Thankfully Lily had returned from the Ministry just in time for dinner and was therefore on hand to distract Jasmine, meaning Harry could spend some time with Hermione and Su before Su had to leave for the evening. And, seeing as how both were there and it was a peculiar sort of joint gift, Harry decided to give them their Christmas presents.

"You got me a book for Christmas?" Hermione eyed the wrapped package, running her fingers over it. "Lord, you really are a bookworm aren't you?"

Harry snorted as he passed Su her present. "Isn't that the cauldron calling the kettle black, Hermione? Besides, I think you two are going to like these. So go on. Open your presents."

The pair looked at their books, holding them up together to compare size. "You got us the same book?" Su frowned and shook her head slowly. "See, if you're going to pull something like that, you should at least be smart enough not to give them to the girls together. We like to be able to think we're special, even when we're not."

"Well, if you two would shut up, stop picking on me, and open your presents, you'd see that they are special." Harry crossed his arms over his chest and waited while they unwrapped them to reveal what he knew would look like two copies of the same book, a guide to intermediate-level transfiguration. "Now flip them over." On the reverse, rather than the back cover, was what appeared to be a second cover advertising an intermediate charms text. "Okay, now both of you open the book."

Hermione opened her copy a moment before Su, flipping through a few pages before looking up at Harry. "Okay? It's a textbook. I'd say thanks if I wasn't miffed about the whole 'same gift as Su' bit. We didn't even rate some individual thought? I thought you were my friend."

Frowning at her book for a moment, Su raised her gaze to Harry and narrowed her eyes. "At least you rated a book that's a book. Harry, are you aware that mine is blank inside?"

"Yep. Flip it over and open the transfiguration side." Su kept eyeing him but did as she was told, eyes widening. Harry knew what she would find: the transfiguration text that the cover said it would be… inside what she'd thought to be an empty book. "Voila. Between the two of you, you now have a charms text and a transfiguration text with some more advanced spells, not to mention tips and tricks from my dad in the transfiguration section, my mom in the charms section, and a few homemade spells my mom threw in for you to try. But the thing is… you'll have to either make a schedule about when you can use each half or study together. Each book can show either the transfiguration or the charms, but only one book can be showing each at any one time. Was a right pain, too; I had to get both mom and dad to recommend a book, buy two of each, get them to write the same thing in each book, and then research and cast the charm that links them myself." The two were staring at him oddly and Harry shrugged defensively. "What? I thought you'd like the books and it'd be a way of bringing you closer together as friends."

"We spend most of our waking hours together, Harry. The only time Su gets to escape me is when I'm on a broom." Hermione snickered and rose from the couch so she could hug Harry. "Seriously, though, thank you. It's a much better gift now that we know what it is. Remind me to dig your present out of my bag later."

A second pair of arms wrapped around Harry as Su added herself to the group hug. "Thank you, Harry, for the very lovely gift that ensures Hermione and I are out of your way so you can spend all your time with your lovely brides-to-be and not feel guilty."

Harry sighed. Why was everyone picking on him today?

Appearing near the door of her Diagon Alley flat with a sharp crack of apparition, Nymphadora Tonks shrugged her red auror cloak off and hung it on a hook before accepting her companion's cloak as well. "So, I can't cook worth a damn and you're even more helpless in the kitchen. Tom looked pretty out of it when we stopped by the Leaky Cauldron on patrol. Muggle take-away?"

Her companion just shrugged, flopping bonelessly into the easy chair near the fire. "At this point, I'd even stomach one of those wretched 'Big Macs' you keep bringing back to the office." Tonks scowled; in her opinion, the crowning achievement of muggle cuisine was that combination of two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun. "I suppose I could go for Scoff again. That ale-braised beef of theirs was brill."

"Did that the other night. What about Feng Sushi?" That just earned her a scoff and Tonks rolled her eyes, wandering over to the kitchenette and retrieving the thick stack of take-away menus she kept handy for just such occasions. Curling up in her lover's lap, she held them out to him. "Alright fine, no raw fish. Tonight, at least; I'll get you to try sushi one of these days if it kills me. And no Scoff. Anything else you're in the mood for?"

Flipping through the various options, her fellow auror muttered under his breath as he slowly narrowed the options down to two before holding up one of the menus. "Deliver Me, maybe? Get a picante pizza and a six-pack of Carling?"

Tonks arched a brow as she took the menu and located the description of a 'picante pizza', her hair darkening from her preferred bubblegum pink to a bright red. "Just out of curiosity, what do you think the odds of you being allowed into my bed tonight are if you order a pizza topped with spicy salami and chili oil?"

"Depends. What do you think your odds are of me giving you extra help mastering the Patronus Charm if you make me sleep on that lumpy monstrosity you call a couch." Tonks pouted at that comment but her lover just smirked back at her, hazel eyes twinkling behind his glasses. Damn him for being smarter and more powerful and more experienced. Damn her for being the least competent of that year's auror trainees. Sadly, she was quite aware that if not for the discreet support and aid of her lover, she probably would have washed out by now. And so while she doubted he'd truly be so petty, she really couldn't afford to take that chance. Opening her mouth to accede to his demands, Tonks was cut off as a finger gently press against her lips. "Actually, why don't we have something a bit classier? We can pick up two pasta dishes and swap so we can each try something new."

Eyes flicking over the menu again, Tonks bit her lower lip. "House penne and spaghetti bolognese?"

Nodding, her companion put a hand on the small of her back and guided Tonks off his lap. "I'm at your mercy here, Dora. You know I don't know a whit about muggle food." Rising to his feet, he pulled a galleon out of his pocket and flipped it her way. "That's for dinner. Although now that I think about it, wasn't Carling the beer I said tasted like piss?" She nodded. "Why don't you go get the food and I'll go pop over to Aberforth's place for some real beer?"

"Sounds good." As she approached the door, Tonks shifted her hair into a short black bob, knowing one of her traditional odd color styles would attract too much attention in muggle London. Pausing, she evaluated her options before grabbing a leather jacket her parents had given her as a graduation present. After all, it wasn't like she could actually wear robes or a cloak for warmth where she was going. "Hey James?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you think of my hair like this?"

After giving her a long look over, James Potter shook his head. "Not one of my favorites, to be honest. You know Lily's short hair is one of the things I find unattractive about her." Oh. Right. She remembered that rant of his now, come to think of it. Her hair dropped to her shoulders and then cascaded down her back, picking up a bit of curl to keep her from looking like a younger version of her crazy Aunt Bella. "Much better. That's my girl." Coming over to grab one of the cloaks he kept at her place for occasions like this, James gave her a peck on the lips before disappearing with a crack.

Tonks stood there for a few seconds, fingers pressed to her lips. This was why she knew she'd win in the end. Sure, Lily was his wife and older and smarter and more powerful and more skilled, but she understood his needs and could be exactly what he wanted out of a woman. So could Lily, Tonks reckoned, but she evidently didn't want to.

And that was why she'd win.

Although to boost her chances, she probably should start taking cooking classes in her spare time… 


	15. Chapter 15

15\. Auld Lang Syne

_"Harry."_

_"Harry."_

_"Harry."_

_"Pay attention to me or I'll just keep getting louder and Pince will come over and throw us both out."_

_Groaning, Harry marked his page and looked up from reading. While his magical knowledge was far beyond his fellow students' in most subjects, Arithmancy was one area he'd bypassed the first time around and so it was all new material to him. "Yes, Tori?"_

_Astoria Greengrass gave a tug on his sleeve, trying in vain to pull him away from his studying. "Courtney needs your help." Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Daphne's pint-sized doppelganger was already countering him. "She can't come here, that's why I'm here. And I know you don't like her and for good reason, but you're the Head Boy and your job is to help all the students, even the ones you don't like."_

_Conceding that point, Harry sighed and swept his reading into his bag, throwing the strap over his shoulder and gesturing for Astoria to lead the way. She did, grabbing his hand and leading him out of the library, down several flights of stairs, past where Lara was ducking into the Hufflepuff common room, and down into the dungeons where the Slytherin common room was. Despite his dislike for the girl in question, Harry started to get worried. What the hell had she done to herself that had her stuck in her dorm? Or at least that was where he assumed Astoria was herding him._

_"Potter's a poof." Astoria looked sheepish at the password, ducking her head slightly to pass through to the common room. "Sorry. Draco sets the passwords and… well, Draco's Draco." Draco was also waiting for them on the couch in the center of the common room, holding court over his assorted flunkies. He snarled but Harry just tapped the head's badge pinned to his robe and the blonde wizard slumped back into his seat. "Anyways, Courtney's up in our room. C'mon."_

_Setting foot on the first stair, Harry waited as the staircase gave a tinkling of chimes, recognizing him as a male with the right to access the girls' dorms. Astoria continued on as tour guide, leading him to the fifth year girls' room. Knocking on the door, she leaned against it and pressed her ear to the wood. "Courtney? You decent?"_

_The reply was muffled by the wood and quiet enough that Harry could barely make out the words. "Not really. Not much I can do about it, though." Harry raised a brow at that and Astoria winced before opening the door. It took Harry's eyes a moment to adjust to the bluish-green light filtering in through the windows, the only illumination in the room, and then he spotted a third figure crouching on one of the beds. He continued stare, trying to process what he was seeing, and the girl huffed. "Keep staring, Potter, and I'm going to start charging you."_

_"I'm sorry, but…" Harry couldn't hold it in any longer, bursting into loud laughter as he stared at the petulantly scowling Courtney Feliday. The girl was… well, a mess. Somehow, she'd shed roughly half of her normal height - although thankfully someone had charmed her underwear to still fit properly - and the joints in her legs had shifted to look like a cat's hind legs, leaving her stuck on all fours. And was that a… Harry watched in disbelief as a pale, hairless tail rose into the air and swished back and forth behind Courtney. "How on earth did you manage to..?"_

_"Someone swore up and down that her father had tutored her in human transfiguration this summer and bribed me to be her victim so she could show off to the other girls." Courtney glared at Astoria at that, the svelte black-haired girl slipping behind Harry for protection. "I didn't want to go to Pomfrey or Snape because they'd just send me to McGonagall and half of the house's points would disappear in twenty words or less. So I asked Tori to go get help… and now I've got Harry bloody Potter staring at me in my knickers."_

_Rolling his eyes, Harry slipped Mjolnir out of his wand holster and waved it over her, casting a few diagnostic spells. "Don't worry, Feliday, pasty eighty centimeter tall catgirls don't do anything for me. Your virtue - or what's left of it, at any rate - is safe from me."_

_Courtney arched a brow at that, slit-pupiled eyes following the tip of glowing tip of his wand. "So does that mean other types of catgirls do it for you, Potter?"_

_"Funny. Here, hold onto this for me for a sec, will you?" Conjuring a ball of Slytherin green yarn, Harry tossed it to Courtney, watching as the girl instinctively rolled onto her back and went to work on it with both her hands and misshapen, cat-like feet. After watching for a few minutes, Harry nudged his companion. "Psst. Hey, Tori. Do you know if any of the girls in the house have a pet cat? Think we can find some catnip to try on her."_

_Abruptly stilling, Courtney glared up at Harry and the giggling Astoria. "Don't you dare, you little bitch. It's bad enough I'm stuck in this embarrassing situation because of you, but if…" After seeing her cat-like eyes and behavior, Harry acted on a hunch and brushed some of her shaggy brown hair aside, seeking out one ear. Just as he suspected, it too was had undergone a cat-like transformation and as he rubbed his fingers along the top, Courtney's eyes rolled back in her head, her grumbling trailing off as she began to let out what was unmistakably a purr. "I haaaaate yoooooou."_

Eyes snapping open as his dream came to an end, Harry lay there in his comfortably warm bed for a moment before groaning and sitting up. So much for a good night's sleep. He really needed to figure out what to do about these dreams of his, he decided. They clearly couldn't be entirely prophetic; tonight's dream had elements that directly contradicted his first dream, to say nothing of the ones he'd had in between. But on the other hand, there were certain common elements and at least two of them seemed to be coming true in the real world…

Sensing his mother's magic somewhere downstairs instead of down the hall, Harry decided to get up and see what she was doing instead of lying in bed and thinking. Grabbing his wand, a piece of parchment, and a quill, he stepped out into the hallway and cracked open Jasmine's door, whistling softly. Hedwig alighted from her perch, crossing the room to land on his outstretched arm. Jasmine stirred but didn't wake and Harry let out a sigh of relief, closing the door and heading down the stairs.

As Harry reached the bottom stair, he turned the corner and groaned as he once again walked in on his mother and Narcissa kissing. The two were almost as bad as Hermione and Ron, he thought in amusement. Flicking his wand, he transfigured Narcissa's robes into a red velvet dress trimmed with white fur. "I saw Mummy kissing Missus Claus."

"Harry!" Pulling away from Narcissa, Lily smoothed down the front of her jumper, slightly askew from the blonde's wandering hands. Narcissa looked, as always, nonplussed about being discovered, calmly using her wand to return her robes to normal. "One of these days, I'm going to make you start wearing a bell."

Harry rubbed his chin for a moment. "Well, I do get on well with Katie, but I'm not sure how I'd go about wearing her…" Lily and Narcissa just stared at him blankly and he blushed. "Right. You don't know the names of everyone at Hogwarts and so that joke falls a bit flat. Katie Bell. She's a chaser on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Wear a Bell. Get it?"

Rolling her eyes, Lily patted Harry on the head before herding Narcissa through the door into the kitchen and gesturing for Harry to follow. He and Narcissa took seats at the kitchen table as his mother put a kettle on the stove, pulling three mugs out of the cupboard and packets of muggle hot cocoa powder. "Moving on… why aren't you asleep? And don't you dare make a noise joke; we put up Silencing Charms this time."

Harry snickered but took pity on his mother, opting to be serious for the time being. "Another weird dream. Figured I wouldn't be getting back to sleep, so I liberated Hedwig and figured I'd send out a letter I really need to take care of."

"Oh? And was my son still a son in this one?" Harry nodded. "Pity. I'd much rather have a daughter." After voicing that odd confession, Narcissa turned to Lily. "If that's the future that comes true, can we have at least one daughter? I'll even let you give her one of those silly flower names your family insists on for its women."

Snorting, Lily crossed her arms over her chest and eyed Narcissa. "Half a mo. 'Silly flower names'? From the woman whose family has had astronomy names for every member for something like five generations?" Then the first sentence hit Lily. "Wait. We could have kids if we wanted to?"

Narcissa nodded. "Are you a witch or aren't you? There are potions and charms for everything, dear. We're lucky that we're both women because we have options that a pair of men wouldn't. For instance, we could…"

"Right, whoa, how about you save the discussion of non-traditional magical reproduction for when her son isn't in the room. I may be old enough to hear this, but it doesn't mean I want to." His mother and her lover both had a laugh at his expense as Harry laid out the parchment and got to work, pointedly ignoring them. "By the way, Mum, if I don't come home on New Year's Eve Day, look for me in the backyard of Greengrass Manor."

"Oh?" Harry nodded and continued to write, his mother circling around to peer over his shoulder. "You want to use her vague offer to bring a guest that is more politeness than an actual offer as a way to bring another girl to her house for the night?" Lily let out a low whistle. "At least we know why you were sorted into Gryffindor now…"

The next day, two nights before he was scheduled to visit the Greengrass Estate for New Year's Eve, the family's pudding was disrupted by a soft pop and then a knock against the backdoor of the house. Harry looked up away from his conversation with Hermione and frowned at the sight of the headmaster waiting outside. Well now. This was just plain irregular. What did Dumbledore want?

Lily got up and answered the door, gesturing for her former headmaster to enter the dining room. "Albus! What can I do for you? I haven't heard from you since Samhuinn, if I remember right."

"Ah, it would seem that unlike my own, your memory is working quite well these days. No, I've come to speak with you and your husband about your son." Dumbledore's eyes took in the assembled crowd in the dining room before his gaze landed on one particular Potter and he inclined his head slightly. "With young Harry included, of course."

Oh, this could not be a good thing. Harry looked around the table at his sisters and Hermione before nodding towards the door. "Jasmine, out or I won't let you use my Nimbus for the rest of my vacation. Rose, out or I won't let Jasmine use my Nimbus and she'll take it out on you because she'll know it's your fault. Hermione, can you hover dessert out into the sitting room?" Hermione nodded and drew her wand, leading the way as the twins slunk out behind her, shooting him glares in between curious looks at the famed Hogwarts headmaster. Soon, though, it was just Harry, his parents, and the headmaster. And wow, not even the vaunted Albus Dumbledore cared about illegal underage magic. Interesting. "Headmaster Dumbledore. Have a good Christmas?"

Dumbledore nodded, conjuring up a seat across the table from Harry. "Indeed I did. Alas, I still have yet to convince people that all I truly need these days are nice warm socks and so I received far too many expensive gifts, but it is the thought that counts, I suppose." His gaze flickered over to the door through which the others had recently passed. "You're just as capable a leader at home as you are on the field, it appears."

"With all due respect, headmaster, I'm sure you're not here to become another member of Harry's Angels." At the confused look of his parents and Dumbledore, Harry gave a Gallic shrug. "Turns out that after the trolls, Hermione and my other friends conspired to organize a not-so-secret society to protect me from myself. They've decided to call themselves Harry's Angels. It's touching, in an odd sort of way."

Leaning back in his chair, Dumbledore shook his head. "It is always important to have friends willing to watch one's back, Harry, but you are quite right in assuming that is not why I'm here. No, I wanted to discuss the idea of you potentially testing out of your year and joining the second years at a minimum, if not higher. I have discussed you with every one of your teachers and with the exception of Professor Snape, all of them recognize you are performing far beyond your peers at present. You must be terribly bored."

Harry winced as his father fixed him with an incredulous stare; his mother, after all, knew about his real age and true experience but that Harry was so gifted was news to James. And it meant he was going to have to try and sell the story he'd given Luna to his perceptive father and the headmaster directly, rather than letting them read it in _The Quibbler_ first and then tackling it at some point down the road. "The problem, Headmaster, is that Rensaren's got a bit more to share with my brain than I let on after Halloween. I've got Prue's entire life at my fingertips and considering people at the time thought she was a goddess… turning a matchstick into a needle or levitating a feather isn't terribly difficult for me, no. But my knowledge starts becoming less useful as we get further into school; Hogwarts wasn't even around back then and the OWLs and NEWTs certainly weren't. There are loads of spells I don't know that I need to for either real life or the exams, and I don't want to risk missing out on them even if nine out of every ten classes puts me to sleep."

"I… see. This is indeed disturbing news, Harry." Dumbledore leaned forward, peering over the top of his glasses at Harry. "Not only do you have access to magic far beyond what a person of your age and maturity should, but Thor and Prue were most certainly not 'gods' content to sit back and enjoy worship. Tell me, how many of those memories involve war and all its cruelties? No, this will simply not do. If needed, we can ask Ollivander to craft a wand for you from scratch no matter the cost and charge it to Hogwarts, but I can't in good conscience allow such an item cannot remain in the hands of someone this young. Harry, I must ask you to surrender the wand in question." Heh. No. Harry shook his head and Dumbledore turned to his parents for reinforcements. "James, Lily, surely you see that this would be for the best."

Just as eagerly as James shook his head, Lily made her unwillingness to consent known. "I refuse to cripple my son's magic just because you think it's a good idea, Albus. The wand picks the wizard and this was the only wand in Ollivander's that was compatible with Harry. I won't turn my son into a squib just to make you happy. End of discussion."

Much to Harry's surprise, it was his father rather than Dumbledore himself who came to the defense of the idea. "C'mon, Lily. This isn't Fudge or one of his lackeys trying to give us advice. It's Albus Dumbledore. I'm sure that if he says we can find another wand that's as good or even a better match for our son that it's true. And I can't say I'm too keen on some old bat with a goddess complex sticking herself into our son's head. It's not natural."

Lily let out a snort as she looked over at her husband. "I'm getting a lecture on 'natural' from the man who likes to ride a broom and turn into a stag? Besides, you weren't there when we went through all of Ollivander's looking for this wand. Why should Harry give up his wand and hope that Ollivander can come through in the future when none of the wands in the shop responded to him? What possible combination could there be that's not already there, unless we want to try a more exotic core than unicorn, phoenix, or dragon in a wand for Harry? Besides, he's gotten this far with it and he's not running around trying to… I don't know, rule the world or kill his classmates or something."

Wincing, Harry held up his hand. "I've zapped Neville pretty good with electricity. Although in my defense, he was threatening to attack Hermione and Daphne."

"Not helping, sweetie." Lily flicked her wand haphazardly at him and Harry narrowed his eyes as he felt his lips disappear, cutting off his ability to speak. "The family will take responsibility for anything that Harry does, and remove him from the school if it becomes necessary. Is that good enough for you, Albus? And so help me God, James, if you dare open your mouth against your own son's welfare, you can sign up for triple shifts from now until the end of January."

Dumbledore sighed and pulled a tin out of his robes, removing a lemon drop and popping it into his mouth. "I dare say that conversations like this make me miss the days when you were a far more tractable and innocent first year, Lily my dear. That would be an acceptable state of affairs while I research the matter further, as long as Harry visits a friend of mine at St. Mungo's this summer. Not for testing or anything along those lines, before you concern yourselves. My friend worked with many of the soldiers who came back from the war against Grindelwald with… difficulties. I simply wish to have him assess how Harry is handling the foreign memories, nothing more."

Flicking his wrist, Harry let the wand in question jump into his hand and wordlessly cancelled the charm on his mouth. While he wasn't too terribly worried, having both a copy of what would here be 'Neville's wand' as well as Mjolnir upstairs in a locked box under his bed, he liked the idea of keeping Rensaren as well and was glad his mother was coming to his defense. But… "You want me to see a shrink?"

"I do believe he prefers to be called a Mind-Healer just like his fellows, but you can ask him about that during your first session if you wish." Dumbledore's gaze turned to James and Lily. "I allowed Remus to attend Hogwarts in spite of his condition, as long as he followed certain guidelines. I am willing to accommodate the needs of my students, but only as long as they do not pose a threat to the student body as a whole. Harry will need to attend counseling or he will not return to Hogwarts next fall."

Merlin. All this for slightly advanced skills and a few spells he'd taken from a Norse woman with a goddess complex. Suddenly, Harry was very glad indeed that they didn't know the full extent of his knowledge and powers and that he hadn't come right out and confessed his true origins to either the headmaster or his father. Forget counseling, he'd be locked in St. Mungo's in the bed Frank Longbottom had occupied in his old world. And how the bloody hell had they gotten from Dumbledore wanting to push him up a few years to wanting to throw him out of school? What a mess. "I'll go in exchange for a meeting with Tiresias Rolfe."

"How do you know of Tiresias?" Harry arched a brow and waited, Dumbledore eventually sighing and nodding. "Very well. I'll contact him as soon as I return to the castle."

_Blinking the spots out of his eyes, Harry reminded himself for the fifth time that night that he really ought to keep his eyes closed when teleporting himself using lightning. It took a further moment to shake off the odd tingling in his limbs, still a sensation he found unusual even after a month of jumping all over Britain to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters but a welcome change from the squeezed feeling of apparating. Then and only then did he assess the situation, trying to figure out what Moody had sent him to handle._

_The Greengrass Estate, or what was left of it, burned in front of him. Whatever the Death Eaters had done here, they hadn't managed to disturb the ward stones, turning the Greengrass's own defenses against them: the wards blocked all inbound apparition and portkey travel, cutting them off from any hope of rescue. Thankfully, though, one of the house elves had been ordered to flee and seek help and had thought to come to Hogwarts. That elf had found Dobby, Dobby had found Harry, and Harry… well, wards weren't a problem that troubled Harry._

_Pulling his invisibility cloak on and casting a flame-freezing charm on himself and the cloak, Harry slipped through a massive hole that had been blasted in the north wall and entered the house, moving slowly as he sought out signs of life. The first person he found was the corpse of a man he was guessing had been Mr. Greengrass, likely a victim of the killing curse given that his body had no marks on it. Mrs. Greengrass was a few feet away in the same state. But the question then became… where were their daughters?_

_Harry got a hint in the form of voices from further in the house: three gruff and distinctly male ones along with one shrieking, terrified female one. Holding out his wand, he tapped the tip against the floor and focused some of his magic down the length. While the Marauders had relied on layers and layers of charms work on enchanted parchment, Harry had learned to do the same thing through pure magical brute force. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."_

_Even though the truth was quite the opposite, tendrils of lightning began to flicker out across the floorboards, drawing the layout of the house and marking out not four but five dots in the next room. Daphne Greengrass was up against the farthest wall, while her sister Astoria was in the middle of the room surrounded by… Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, and Vincent Crabbe._

_There was another high-pitched shriek and then the meaty slap of a fist meeting flesh. "Shut up, you little slag. The more you struggle, the more we'll make it hurt. And keep those eyes open or I'll crucio you again, Daphne. If we let you live through this, maybe next time you'll think twice before defying the Dark Lord the way your parents did."_

_Any doubt as to what was about to happen was dispelled when Harry heard a zipper being lowered. Gritting his teeth, he focused his will and the wand in his hand shifted into a massive warhammer. Oh, this would not do at all. Not one bit._

_Passing through the doorway, Harry decided the two brutes would go first so he could take his time and enjoy Draco's death. Slowly circling around them, he winced as Draco used a series of low powered cutting curses to slice through Astoria's clothing, leaving her naked and bleeding from a series of thin cuts that crisscrossed her body. Harry's rage grew; no girl deserved to suffer through what Malfoy was planning for her. And none were going to. Not on his watch. Moving closer, he tugged down the hood on his cloak before tapping Crabbe on the shoulder. "Wotcher. Is this a private party?"_

_"Potter!"_

_"Wow. After nearly six years of school together, you actually remember my name. I'm shocked." Twirling the warhammer with a grace that seemed impossible for its size and weight, Harry brought his weapon up and slammed it into the frozen Death Eater's skull. The back caved in under the hard strike, killing Crabbe instantly. "Too bad nobody's going to remember your name after tonight." Pulling Mjolnir free with a wet squelching noise, Harry lunged forward and took Goyle out of the equation with a swipe that caved in his chest and sent him flying across the room to hit the far wall. That just left… "Evening, Malfoy."_

_Jerking himself away from Astoria as if she'd suddenly transformed into one of Hagrid's skrewts, Malfoy tried and failed to combine a fierce glare with his furious efforts to tuck himself back into his pants. "Looks like you lot have a guardian angel. That's okay, we've already made our point." Smirking, Malfoy raised his wand and gave them a casual wave. "Have a good evening, ladies."_

_As Malfoy gathered his magic to him and tried to apparate away, Harry's lips twisted in a smirk of his own as he thrust his free hand out, gathering his power and waiting for a moment before pulling. There was a flicker of motion as the blonde-haired Death Eater momentarily disappeared before reappearing with a scream. "Oh, don't leave now. The party's just getting started, Draco."_

_Waving his hand, Harry conjured a robe and dropped it over Astoria's nude form before summoning her wand to him. Daphne was under a silencing charm and needed to be unpetrified as well, but soon it was three of them against one Death Eater… and Harry was going to make sure that Draco Malfoy didn't escape to try something like this again. "Oh look, I found this extremely lifelike practice dummy. Who here wants to learn how to cast the Unforgivables?"_

"Harry?" Blinking, Harry looked down into the wide silver eyes of Luna and shook his head to clear it. "Are you alright?"

How could he have been stupid enough to think he could come here and spend time around the Greengrass family, and not be assaulted by memories from his past? Harry nodded, though, knowing he couldn't actually explain his problem to Luna or any of the others without opening up another can of worms and revealing he'd lied in his interview with her. "Fine. She just reminds me of someone from you-know-who's memories."

Turning back to the girl waiting and watching him with wide eyes, Harry pasted a smile on his face. "It's nice to meet you, Astoria. Don't mind me. I'm getting a little odd in my old age, like Dumbledore. Do you know where your sister is?"

"You're eleven, Harry. If you're getting weird it's because you're crazy, not because you're old. Even I'm smart enough to recognize that." Astoria led them through the house to the living room, where Hermione, Su, and Daphne were already settled. Harry and Hermione had split up earlier that day, Hermione flooing to Su's and then on to Daphne's while Harry picked up Luna. Evidently her companion for the evening hadn't taken as long to get ready… which was odd, given Su looked a great deal more sophisticated and made-up than Luna did. "Next time, you can wait by the floo by yourself, sister. Your friends are weird. And I want that galleon on my nightstand by tomorrow morning." Grumbling under her breath to herself, Astoria turned and left the room.

There was silence as Daphne rose from the couch, approaching Luna and circling her the young blonde slowly. After two laps of long inspection, Daphne nodded to herself. "With a little work, you'll do. I suppose. You overload on shades of a single color too much; even if you are in Ravenclaw, we'll need to wean you off wearing this much blue at one time. But at least I'm being given good material to work with. I could have another Hermione on my hands."

Hermione bristled and glared from her spot beside Su on the couch. "Hey!"

"Hermione, darling, I love you but if I didn't think you'd put me in the hospital wing for it, I would stun you, give you a makeover, then burn all your clothes and replace them." Daphne paused and thought for a moment. "Quite possibly use the Imperius Curse to 'convince' you to use makeup each morning, too. Although I think there are will-weakening potions I could use instead that are slightly more legal. The only reason I'm not nagging you about your appearance is because Su seems to be making it her mission and she's a bit more patient with you than I'd be. I mean really, you came to dinner smelling like a locker room more times this term than I cared to count. Do you know what you're doing to my reputation?"

"I'm on the quidditch team! We practice before dinner!"

"So is Harry. And three other girls. And they all manage to smell decent when they show up to eat."

Deciding to rescue Daphne from a fight that shouldn't occur until both girls were old enough that mud and bikinis could be involved, Harry pulled a package out of his pocket and cancelled the shrinking charm. "Speaking of fashion… here you go, Daphne. Happy Christmas, albeit a few days late. I wanted to be here when you opened it so I could show you the charms on it."

Daphne snorted but took the present anyways, flipping it over in her hands a few times. "A likely story. Probably forgot to get me something and you're late because you had to stop at the Alley before coming here." A smile softened her pretend rebuke and she tore through the wrapping paper, letting it fall to the ground as she unfolded the cloak inside. Twisting it back and forth, she let out a soft coo as she admired it. "Harry, this is beautiful. Thank you!"

Draping it around Daphne's shoulders, Harry took her hand and guided it up to the catch. "Gryffindors go forward." The fabric rippled and turned from emerald green to a brilliant Gryffindor red with gold trim. "The grass is always greener." And just as quickly, it turned back to the green that accentuated Daphne's eyes. "I liked the green with your eyes, but figured it was too close to Slytherin colors, so I gave you another option for at school."

"I suppose this is my cue to retrieve your present, hmm?" Daphne's new cloak billowed as she turned and headed for the Christmas tree, bending to retrieve a small package from beneath it. "Happy Christmas, Harry."

Harry was about to open his present when Hermione and Su surged up from the couch, dragging him over and pushing him down in the middle before piling two more presents in his lap and taking up position on either side of him. Starting with Hermione's first, he opened it to find what looked like a pair of rather sporty muggle sunglasses. "They're for quidditch. I got your prescription from your mum and used a magical optometrist to get the right lenses. Was a whole lot cheaper than a muggle would have been. Too bad I can't charge my old friends a finder's fee and bring them to Diagon Alley for new glasses. I'd be rich…"

Switching to the sunglasses, Harry verified the world was just as clear albeit a good deal darker. Turning his head back and forth, they didn't slip an inch and he guessed there were some subtle sticking charms or something on the frames to keep them in place. "Wicked. Thanks, Hermione."

Su's present was a glass disc roughly as big around as his fist, contained in a thin gold band etched with runes. "It's a translation tool. You can run it over books in a foreign language and you'll see English. It only works on Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German, Italian, and Russian, but I think that's enough at our age, hmm?"

Considering he already knew most Scandinavian languages thanks to his special helper and a smattering of other languages from his training in the other universe, that was more than enough in his opinion. "Wow. Thanks, Su. I've been meaning to look into some of the older magical traditions of China ever since you showed me that water spell of yours, but most of the books Hogwarts has aren't exactly accessible to those of us who don't know Chinese. So again, thank you."

"Hopefully you're saving the best for last or else we're going to have words, you and I." Grabbing a pillow from one of the other couches, Daphne placed it atop the coffee table before seating herself so she could watch Harry open her present. "Well, go on. Open it."

Harry eyed her oddly before unwrapping what turned out to be a fairly high-denomination gift voucher to Flourish & Blotts. "Wow. Erm, Daphne, I didn't spend anywhere near this much on your present…"

Running one hand along the outside of her new cloak, Daphne nodded. "I didn't think you would. You're a boy, after all, and your father isn't exactly the traditionalist sort. Learning experience, then. If you're going to mingle with the pureblood families, they're going to expect you to know certain things. Like that you should buy presents that reflect how much money you have, to avoid looking too thrifty. Although you shouldn't go too grand, because then you just look like a show-off. Still, keep that in mind when my birthday rolls around in August, okay?"

"Don't worry, Harry, I'm not going to make you buy me expensive things." Harry had forgotten all about Luna, and looked back over his shoulder to find her hovering behind the couch. Reaching behind her neck, she unhooked something he hadn't even noticed because he'd become so accustomed to seeing on the other Luna: a butterbeer cork necklace. She was wearing two, actually, and one apparently had his name on it. Looping it around Harry's neck, she fastened the clasp and then gave him a quick hug. "I even kept it warm for you."

"Erm… thanks, Luna. It's very nice."

Unlike the look Daphne was giving Luna at the moment… 


	16. Chapter 16

16\. And Back Again

"What time is it?"

"_Tempus_. 11:50."

"Thanks, Daphne, I don't think I could have done that on my own." Actually, Harry could have but it would have been difficult. Somehow, despite the one-sided dislike between his host and the younger girl, he'd ended up between Daphne and Luna on the couch with the latter curled up against his side snoring softly while the former was merely leaning on him. "And seriously, thanks for the change of scenery. It was nice to get out of the house and spend time with my friends for the night."

Daphne wriggled a bit next to him, turning her head so she could stare up at him with sleepy green eyes. He had done well, he decided; the cloak he'd purchased was almost an exact match. "Any time, Harry. Hermione seemed a bit… off… whenever I brought up Potter Place, though. How does she get along with your sisters? She's an only child, right?"

Turning his gaze back and forth, Harry studied the two heads resting on his chest, comparing the two girls. Luna looked quite peaceful while asleep which was more than he could say about Daphne, who appeared guarded even when blinking fuzzily and fighting off sleep. Then he realized she'd asked him a question. "Yeah, she's an only. And she gets along with them well enough. Better than I do but I think that's because they're all girls. Much better than I do with Jasmine, but that's not really surprising. Jasmine would curse her own foot off if Hermione asked her too. How about you and Astoria? When you're not bribing her to do stuff for you, that is?"

"Astoria and I are only two years apart but the age difference keeps us from really being friends. Back up for just a moment, though." Daphne looked over at their mutual muggleborn friend, perched precariously on the two-seater across from them and drooling into Su's hair. "What's this about Jasmine and Hermione? Hermione mentioned they were practicing quidditch against each other a lot, but…"

Crap. He'd promised himself that he would keep his mouth shut about the subject, so Hermione could figure out things on her own without him unduly influencing the future to try and shape it towards or away from the different worlds he saw in his dreams. But as long as the kneazle was out of the bag anyways, Harry figured maybe filling Daphne in could do some good. At least then she wouldn't be blindsided if Hermione ever brought the matter to her. Which was where she was going if she needed advice, because Harry absolutely refused to help Hermione with that particular romantic endeavor. He'd find a way to deal with it if it happened, but that didn't mean he had to help her.

Daphne poked his ribs and Harry jumped, cursing himself for yet again wandering off mentally when someone was talking to him. He had to be careful or one of these days, one of his friends was going to call him on it. "I don't know if Hermione's caught onto it yet, but my sister Jasmine has a painfully obvious crush on her. Actually, given how obvious it is, I'm pretty sure she hasn't realized yet."

"That's mean, Harry." Daphne looked over at Hermione before smirking. "Then again, she seems completely unaware of the way she drools over the older girls in our house and the nicknames they call her, so I suppose I have to rate that one 'mean but true'. Almost makes me glad I'm not an early bloomer like Lavender. Almost." She repeated her spell and this time a perfect 12:00 emerged from her wand. "I do believe you owe me a kiss to celebrate the new year. Unless you want to wake up Luna, Su, or Hermione."

Damn. And he'd successfully avoided all three sprigs of randomly migrating magical mistletoe, too. Based on the look she was fixing him with, Harry didn't think waking up Su, Hermione, or especially Luna was an option that would lead to his continued good health, and so instead he did his best not to cringe as he leaned in and briefly pressed his lips against Daphne's.

How many years were pedophiles getting in Azkaban these days?

He knew it really wasn't fair to Daphne, or himself even, but while he could quite easily be friends and stay with those 'his age' in body most of the time, when it came to anything romantic, he rather keenly felt his mental years. He'd lived six years longer than she had, lost his virginity, done things that would probably make his parents - or at least his father; his mother seemed rather free-spirited - blush, been engaged to be married… and the extent of her love life to this point was probably just these awkward interactions with him as of late.

Thinking back to his ransacking of Malfoy Manor after the death of the head and the heir, Harry frowned. They had plenty of books… maybe some sort of dark temporal acceleration ritual existed? Some sort of spell he could use to accelerate the next five years, perhaps? Or at least the next three? He'd settle for fourteen year-old Daphne over eleven year-old Daphne. People had started pairing off a bit in his fourth year, meaning she wouldn't be of optimum age but would at least be old enough that people wouldn't think too much of it.

"Harry?" Looking down at the speaker, Harry raised an eyebrow and a light flush spread over Daphne's cheeks. "Are we going to discuss a certain letter your father received or is it just going to be this erumpent in the room for the near future?"

Actually, he would have preferred to let it be the 'erumpent in the room', personally. Harry groaned and leaned his head back against the back of the couch. "Not sure. Isn't this the sort of business your father and my father should be discussing? I'm not sure either of us is smart enough to make such an important decision about the future of the Houses of Potter and Greengrass…"

Daphne winced at the none-too-subtle barb toward her public attitude about marriage and a future husband. "I guess I deserve that. But I don't think you realize what it's like to be me. We're not dark like the Malfoys or Blacks and I've never heard my dad proposing we kill off the muggles or something, but that doesn't mean the Greengrasses don't keep to certain traditions. I'm not supposed to marry for love, Harry, I'm supposed to marry for the good of the family. And right now, I can't really ignore the fact that one of my closest friends is an unattached boy who's smart, of good blood, and powerful enough to take out three adult mountain trolls."

"You seem to be able to forget the fact that we're both eleven pretty easily, though. And you're right there. I don't know anything about what your family is putting you through. My grandparents turned down contract offers for my father and he married my mother out of love. My muggleborn mother, might I add, so my blood can't be that good by your family's standards." Daphne didn't have an answer to that, turning away and resting her head on his shoulder. Sighing, Harry leaned over and pressed his cheek against the top of Daphne's head. "How about you worry about being my friend for now and if something else happens when we get older, it happens. Because there's no way I'm ready to make such a huge decision about my life at… well, I'm not even a teenager yet. If I'd accepted it when you sent it, I would have been engaged before even getting my first kiss."

Wide green eyes greeted that statement as Daphne pulled away, staring up at him in disbelief. "Really? You've never kissed a girl before me?" She brought one hand up to her lips. "Wow." Her hand dropped, head shaking in disbelief. "Never?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm eleven, Daphne. No, I'm not exactly running around kissing girls. I'm only one step past the 'girls are icky' stage." After all, he couldn't exactly tell her about kissing Cho Chang or Ginny Weasley, much less the fact that he'd had sex with the latter.

"Hmmph. Well fine. Feel free to think that most girls are icky if you want. Less competition for me when you finally come around." Harry rolled his eyes but figured that was good enough for now. If she slipped down the road and began pushing too hard on the potential pairing off front, he'd have further words with her then. Looking over at their friends, Daphne nudged him in the ribs again. "You know, we should probably go find actual beds soon. And do something with Hermione and Su. Because if they sleep like that all night, they're going to wake up with really bad neck pain and I don't want to listen to them whine."

Nodding, Harry wiggled himself free and drew his wand. A gentle flick had Su hovering an inch or two off the couch and he eased her away from Hermione, gently tipping his friend over to lie on her side for the moment. As he turned to float Su off to where Daphne had previously shown him the guest bedrooms were, a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Looking over at Daphne, Harry stifled a chuckle. "Alright there, Daphne?"

Daphne's glare alternated between Harry and the thin blonde lying halfway across her lap, arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Harry's guess was that Luna hadn't taken kindly to being deprived of her pillow and had taken to using the next best thing: Daphne. "Keep laughing and I'll urk!" Luna squeezed Daphne a bit tighter, snuggling in closer to her new pillow.

Deciding not to wait and see what Daphne's threat actually was, Harry hustled Su out of the room.

The morning of January 5th dawned bright and cold, but thankfully it wasn't as hectic as it could have been. As much as Harry liked the Weasleys - well, most of them - their last minute rushes to pack had always irritated him. Perhaps it was something Petunia Dursley had instilled in him, but saving such an important task for when one had the most to worry about and the least amount of time to accomplish things just seemed foolish.

With his siblings dressed and fed, his father off at work as always, and his and Hermione's trunks packed and ready to go, all that was left to do was round up his mother and floo over to King's Cross to board the train. It took him a minute, but Harry eventually tracked her down in the study, hunched over a piece of paper. "You ready to go, Mum?"

Lily looked up from her work for a moment before shaking her head. "Let me just finish these letters. I want to send these off from the international owl office in Diagon Alley after I bring you to King's Cross."

"Oh?" Peering down over her shoulder, Harry got a look at the addresses on the envelopes she'd laid out for the letters she was writing. "Crowley Hall? Durmstrang Institute? The Korean Academy for the Magically Elite? The Delhi Conservatory? Kourotrophos? Isn't that in Greece? Geeze, Mum, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to get rid of me or something. The only one you missed is Beauxbatons. Forget the address?"

Pausing for a moment, Lily let out a quiet snicker before her quill began to scratch over the parchment again. "I suppose I could write them and the Salem Witches Institute, but then we'd have to invest in a few potions next summer if we wanted you to meet the entrance requirements. But if you really want to be my eldest daughter instead of my eldest son… you know, that could be where Carina comes from. Narcissa and I set you both up with the potions and transfer you, and he decides to keep the new look after returning to Britain…"

Harry blinked as his mind took a moment to wrap around that. Beauxbatons was an all-girl's school here? Huh. That was weird. While most of his attention had been on staying alive in fourth year, he distinctly remembered Parvati ditching him at the Yule Ball to dance with a boy from Beauxbatons who she'd dated for the remainder of fourth year and then some.

Actually, now that he thought about it, the idea did have some potential to it. He could get away from the headmaster for a bit, let Neville bumble through the Chamber of Secrets incident while he spent the year with Fleur Delacour and other lovely French ladies. And lovely ladies they were indeed. Much lovelier than a basilisk that went around the school terrorizing people. And much, much lovelier than that buffoon of a DADA professor they'd get stuck with: Gilderoy Lockhart.

Tempting as it was, though, he couldn't just walk away. Who knew what would happen to Hermione, Su, and Daphne without him there to protect them? Not to mention the fact that he'd miss out on Jasmine and Rose's first year, and his first opportunity to make friends with Luna, Lara, and maybe even Ginny. If she was less of a Neville fangirl these days, that was. "No thank you. I'm quite happy being the Potter heir and not the Potter heiress. Why are you writing to all these other schools, though?"

"Because the headmaster has put conditions on you returning to Hogwarts next year. Who knows who this friend of his is or what his real goal is in making you attend these sessions?" His mother gestured to the array of letters spread out before her on the desk. "I want a bargaining chip ready before next fall… and if worst comes to worst, I'm sure that Rensaren would make you eligible for the Korean Academy."

Hopefully. Actually, Harry mused, it might take a full revelation of his magical potential to qualify for attendance at the Korean Academy for the Magically Elite, not to mention learning to speak Mandarin and Nihongo. Su was a phenomenally brilliant girl and she'd been rejected for admission, but considering that the school served the best of the best of the combined magical populations of China, the Koreas, Japan, Mongolia, and southern Russia… there were a lot of bodies competing for a limited number of seats. They truly were the premiere institution of magical learning in the world, despite Hogwart's assertions to the contrary, and most of its graduates went on to accomplish great things not only in their home country but in the world at large.

Harry decided to give his mother a hand and used his wand to neatly fold each letter and stuff it into the appropriate envelope, securing it with a dab of wax and the Potter family seal. "Well, if you're done plotting your next move in the chess game called my life, Hermione and I need to go back to Hogwarts, at least for now."

Cursing, Lily checked the small clock on her desk before pushing her chair back and rising to her feet. "Right you are. Everything packed?" Harry nodded. "Of course it is, you're getting even better than I am about picking up after yourself. Hermione's ready to go too, I assume?" Another nod. "Let's go then."

Biting his tongue, Harry decided against pointing out that they were waiting on her and followed obediently as she descended the stairs. He and Hermione had each shrunken and pocketed their trunks for the return to school and so the only thing waiting in front of the fireplace was an impatient muggleborn and a pouting half-blood. "Maybe I'll see you this summer? You can come over and we can fly again?"

"Sure, Jasmine." Before Hermione could continue, though, Jasmine took advantage of what she thought was an empty room and latched onto the brunette, delivering a hug and a peck on the cheek, neither of which Hermione returned. Then she pulled back, only to catch sight of her mother and older brother. Blushing bright red, Jasmine raced between them and out of the room. "Not a word, Harry Potter. Not one word."

Harry raised his hands in surrender. "Okay. Besides, talking about how you ended up curled up with Su in her bed at Daphne's house is much more interesting anyways."

That induced both a blush and a growl and Harry took a step backwards, slipping halfway behind his mother for protection. "I told you, I sleepwalk. I don't know why I went in Su's room or decided to borrow part of her bed, but… you know what, it was completely harmless and I wouldn't need to explain myself to you even if it was something dirty!" Huffing, Hermione grabbed a handful of floo powder out of the dish on the mantle and pitched it into the fire. "Platform 9¾!"

Inching out from behind his mother, Harry shook his head. "That girl is far too easy to tease. Oh well. It's payback for her needling me when I got those contracts. She deserves it."

"Uh huh. Say that again when you're not hiding behind me. Possibly to her face." Harry shuddered and his mother grabbed a handful of powder for herself, tossing it into the fire. "Hurry up, Harry, or you're going to be late for the train. Platform 9¾!"

Harry's jaw dropped as his mother disappeared into the flames. "Wait a minute. We would have been there half an hour ago if you'd been ready!" Realizing he was talking to thin air, Harry just shook his head and took some powder for himself. "Platform 9¾!"

Watching the rather bland countryside roll by as the Hogwarts Express made its way back towards Scotland, Harry yawned and tuned out the idle conversation going on between Hermione, Su, and Daphne. The dynamic duo, as Harry had taken to thinking of them, had broken out his present about half an hour into the trip and were bookending Daphne as the trio went through some of the new charms it contained.

A burst of red light filled the cabin and Harry turned just in time to get a face full of rose petals. There was absolute silence for a long moment before the girls started giggling madly, taking in the newly redecorated compartment. Sighing, he rose to his feet, spilling a large pile of petals from his lap onto the floor. "And on that note, I'm going to take a walk. You lot have fun cleaning that one up."

Ignoring their pleading, Harry exited the compartment and closed the door behind him. Who cared if they didn't know how to vanish things yet? They should have thought of that before conjuring up a ridiculously large amount of rose petals. He wasn't their maid, after all.

Walking down the corridor, Harry occasionally peeked into the compartments as he passed. Holiday spirit was evidently still in full swing, with most of his peers busy showing off their favorite acquisitions to their friends. It almost made Harry feel guilty for not sharing the Marauder's Map and the true nature of his new pocket watch with his friends. Almost. After all, a boy had to have some secrets and while the girls didn't seem to be the type who'd rat him out, he also knew what jealousy or even just a bad mood could drive a friend to do.

Cough Ron cough.

Speaking of Weasleys, though, Harry found himself staring at two of them as he entered the next car of the train. Two Weasleys and a Robinson to be precise, the twins bookending the shorter brunette girl as they whispered together about some havoc they'd either already caused or were in the process of planning. "…new wand is amazing. Same wood, same core, a quarter of an inch longer and I'm a whole new witch." Kate waved said wand for emphasis, releasing a spray of red and gold sparkles. "Ollivander said it'd be great for charms, which will be a plus for our…" Suddenly, she trailed off as the three realized they weren't alone. "Potter."

"Robinson. Unknown Weasley Twin the First. Unknown Weasley Twin the Second." Harry moved to one side of the hallway and gestured for them to pass, only to find himself turning to call something at the retreating trio. "Hey, Robinson." Stopping, the brunette looked back over her shoulder at him. "Arithmancy and Ancient Runes?"

Kate blinked owlishly at him. "My electives, you mean?" Harry nodded and she turned to face him properly, an odd look on her face. "Yeah. Why? And why do you know that?"

Hoping this wouldn't come off as creepy as it sounded in his head, Harry tapped on temple. "Oneiromancy. I think. I've been having these odd dreams…"

"You're dreaming about me? That's kinda creepy."

"…and so I've been asking people little things I remember to try and figure out if it's oneiromancy or I'm just having strangely vivid dreams. In one of them, I was in the common room with my friends and you were sitting with Angelina and Alicia working on homework. Angelina tells Oliver that she can't come out for extra practice because she's working on arithmancy homework with you and Alicia, and then mentions ancient runes work too before he can ask about later." Lies, lies, all of it lies, but Harry wasn't about to admit to a dream where she asked him to sign one of her breasts, nor the half a dozen others she'd either starred or co-starred in. He liked his manhood attached to his body and in full working order. Some of his plans for a few years down the road would require as much. "So far, I got your electives right and out of two couples I saw, both girls admit to having a crush on the person I saw them dating."

The twins looked at each other over Kate's head, communicating silently for a moment before turning their attention to Harry. "Say, Harry, favorite seeker of ours…"

"…well, after Charlie, but he's family and so we have to say that…"

"…you didn't happen to see or hear anything useful in these dreams of yours, did you?"

"Broom racing rankings…"

"…quidditch scores…"

"…little things like that?" Waiting for the twins to stop bouncing their sentences back and forth between themselves, Harry shook his head and the pair slumped. "Well bollocks. That could have been a useful way to get the money we need for our prank store someday."

Chuckling, Harry turned to continue his exploration up the length of the Express. "Nah, it wouldn't have been a good idea for you. Sore losers don't make for good customers. Or parents of customers."

"He has a point, I guess."

"I know. Strange little blighter. No wonder he's the top of his year, though."

"You two were just outwitted by a first year." Kate sighed, her final words muffled as the door between the cars slid shut behind her and the twins. "I need a better class of friend."

Harry shook his head as he laughed quietly. That had been interesting. So Kate really was taking ancient runes, as he'd seen in his first dream, and the 'private arithmancy tutoring' she'd asked for in another had likely been a combination of actual need and innuendo. Two more signs that he might actually be seeing the future - or potential futures - in his dreams. A soft cough made him realize that his preoccupied wanderings had brought him to the end of the car… or rather to stand in front of someone waiting outside the last compartment of the car. "Join me."

Contemplating that for a moment, Harry decided he of all people was hardly at risk. What could an eleven-year old girl with half a first year's education possibly do to him, after all? Entering the compartment, he looked to each side before taking a seat on the bench that wasn't occupied with an owl cage and a satchel. Blaise seated herself opposite him and poked a finger into the wire cage, stroking the back of her owl and giving Harry a moment to study her. Now that they were closer, he could see definite resemblances to the Blaise he'd left behind in his home universe… similarities in the eye shape, cheekbones, and jaw, the way she held herself, and the slightly calculating look to the gaze she fixed on him. It made Harry wonder what he'd see in three years when Beauxbatons came to Hogwarts; would each male student have a female analog or would they still be male and attending another school?

"Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person." Blaise's lips quirked up a small smile as she crossed one leg over the other, eyeing him speculatively. "I take it you received my family's letter over the holidays?"

Harry nodded. "Shouldn't you have met me in person before, I don't know, trying to get your family to sell you to me?"

Rather than the anger he was expecting, Blaise's smile just grew a bit at his barb. Maybe she found her parents' actions amusing as well? "Touché. But, what's done is done. So, what did you think?" Harry raised an eyebrow and regarded her in silence, waiting for her to elaborate. What did he think about… what? The current werewolf legislation? The price of newt eyes? Lavender Brown's new haircut? "Of my family's offer, that is. I thought the dowry was generous, considering the rank of my family compared to your other suitors."

Uh… huh. There was something incredibly disquieting to Harry about how easily young pureblood witches could talk about businesslike future marriages at such a young age. "Well, it's not exactly like the Potters are hurting for money. The size of the dowry doesn't matter to me as much as the person it comes with. I don't know how you knew about Daphne and Luna's contracts to compare to…"

"A copy goes on file with the Department of Magical Records and Contracts when their parents send the letter to you. My step-father works in the department and saw them come in, then wrote down the details for comparison."

"…okay, that's a bit creepy. But as I was saying, Daphne and Luna are friends. I've never even met you before today. So I'll tell you the same thing I told Daphne when she pushed me about the contract she sent. Right now, I'm looking for friends." Harry leaned forward, patting Blaise on the knee. "If something happens between me and a friend in the future, then it'll happen. But I'm not interested in tying myself down, especially when I'm eleven. So if you're really interested…"

Blaise shook her head, daintily grabbing his wrist and removing his hand from her knee. "Pass. Mother decided you should be our prime candidate after Samhuinn, but you're not the only boy in our year. I didn't think you'd go for it because of your parents, but Mother thought otherwise. I was right. Oh well. She now owes me two extra presents for putting me through this indignity. I'll see you in class."

That was it? Harry almost felt insulted. While he was glad he wouldn't need to expand his little group to incorporate another girl and a third suitor at that, hearing that Blaise's interest in him was strictly business was… scratch almost, it was insulting. But seeing as how he was in the clear now, Harry decided to make a strategic retreat rather than argue and potentially convince her he was a good bet again by accident. "Right then. I'll just show myself out."

Rising to his feet, Harry exited her compartment and closed the door behind him, making his way back towards his own compartment. Much to his amusement, the rose petals were still littering the floor of the compartment, their cloying scent hitting him like a slap in the face as soon as he opened the door. Then again, he realized after checking his pocket watch, he hadn't been gone long. "So, what happened to cleaning up in here?"

"Harry!" Daphne launched herself from between the other two girls, hugging him with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, even for her. "Please, teach one of them the spell to get rid of these damn petals. All the other compartments in this car are full, so there's nowhere we can move to, and the smell is getting overpowering."

While Hermione and Su weren't quite as desperate, Harry could tell from their expressions that it was starting to get to them too. "And here I thought girls liked flowers?" Daphne crossed her arms over her chest, fixing him with a magnificent pout, and Harry sighed. They were stuck with the petals because the spell was above their grade level… as was the spell to get rid of them. Even just showing the girls how to do the spell would reveal that he knew how to do even more advanced magic… but at this point, they probably knew as much. "Alright, I'll teach one of you how to do the spell…"

Hermione's hand shot up as she wiggled forward, sitting on the edge of her seat. "I'll do it!"

"…but I get to transfigure the clothes of that person into a maid's outfit." Hermione's hand abruptly dropped as her expression shifted from excitement to revulsion; despite having to wear a skirt daily as part of her uniform, this version of her was a lot like her original counterpart - well, pre-Ron - in that she greatly preferred slacks to skirts. Evidently she was willing to suffer through the rose petals' cloying smell if it meant she could keep her legs covered. He looked over at Su and then Daphne, neither of whom looked too thrilled with the idea either. "What? Maybe next time you'll think before casting a spell you can't undo. So, any takers?"

Daphne looked over at Su and then both turned their attention to Hermione, who shook her head vehemently. Sighing, Daphne held out one hand towards Su. "Roshambo?"

"Works for me. Ro! Sham! Bo!"

Holding out one arm, Harry watched Daphne make the short hop from the train to the platform, her white lace-trimmed black skirt puffing out a bit as she moved. Letting his eyes wander up and down her, he came to a rather disturbing conclusion: Daphne at eleven filled the snugly-fitting outfit just about as well as Ginny had when he'd transfigured one of her robes into the same costume. Merlin. Forget turning into a pedophile while surrounded by younger versions of a number of his female friends, maybe the tendencies had always been there. He let out a self-deprecating chuckle, only to grunt as Daphne elbowed him in the ribs. "What? I wasn't laughing at you, I swear."

"Uh huh. Laugh it up, Harry. Just remember, I know where you sleep and the boys' dorms don't have a spell to keep us girls out." Shivering, Daphne pressed herself tight against his side. "Now hurry up and escort me to a carriage. I'm freezing in this ridiculous getup."

Harry nodded, taking pity on her and shrugging off his own cloak so he could wrap it around her. That would cut down on some of the wind chill, although she'd still suffer from the actual cold. Warming charms to both the cloak and his jumper and slacks took care of that problem for the most part, though, and they were both a good deal more comfortable as Su and Hermione joined them, the quartet heading for one of the empty, thestral-drawn carriages.

A green-clad figure near one of them caught Harry's attention and he diverted the group in a new direction as Professor McGonagall beckoned him to approach. "Professor?"

"Mister Potter. Misses Granger, Greengrass, and Li." McGonagall looked them each up and down before sighing and relaxing slightly. "Shall I take it from the lack of students needing to be tended to by Madam Pomfrey that you had an uneventful journey?"

Harry gasped, bringing one hand up to his chest. "Professor! You wound me! You act like I'm the one who starts the trouble. It's not my fault that purebloods can't seem to keep their bigoted opinions to themselves around me. Or that they tend to get injured shortly after expressing their opinions."

"I'm sure, Mister Potter." McGonagall went to leave but froze, abruptly turning back around to stare at Daphne. "Miss Greengrass, what are you wearing?"

Blushing, Daphne looked down before drawing Harry's cloak more tightly around her body. "Hermione, Su, and I were experimenting with charms on the train. We needed Harry to teach us the vanishing spell so we could get rid of some conjured rose petals, and he decided we needed a reminder not to attempt spells too complicated for us in the future."

McGonagall's gaze shifted from the blushing raven-haired girl to Harry. "I see. Five points to Gryffindor, Potter, for your advanced, albeit unusual, garment transfiguration. And another five points for reminding them why our material is taught in a certain order." Pulling out her wand, she flicked it and restored the green dress Daphne had been wearing, the black-haired girl shrugging off Harry's cloak as her own was returned to her. "Now find a carriage and I'll see you all up at the school."

As McGonagall departed, Harry was surprised to see Hermione pouting. He arched a brow and the brunette sidled up next to him. "What? It was a cute outfit. It worked on her."

"Uh huh. Were you appreciating the outfit, or appreciating the view?" Hermione looked confused and so Harry elaborated. "You know. In a Jasmine sort of way?"

Hermione punched his shoulder hard.

Harry bite his lip to avoid crying out. Damn that hurt. He really needed to learn to stop picking on her while in arm's reach. 


	17. Chapter 17

17\. Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff

"Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts. Literally, that is, not another school year, although it does sometimes feel like time flies that quickly. Alas, there are six more months of class work in your future before you complete your academic year." There were a chorus of groans to accompany that and Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he looked down at the student body from his seat at the head table. "Now, while I don't wish to delay this delicious meal for too terribly long, there is one very important announcement I feel I should share with you."

While the student body by and large continued to chatter, knowing at least the prefects would catch the message and relay it on if it was something that was actually of import to them, Harry waved his hand to shush his friends as he gave his full attention to Dumbledore. After all, this was another deviation in the timeline from his perspective. Nothing interesting had happened between his Christmas visits to the mirror and… wait. Was this where they would find out Snape was replacing Hooch for the February quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff? Oh, that was no big deal then.

"…the upcoming Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match will be postponed." Wait, what? That grabbed everyone's attention, not just Harry's, and the volume in the Great Hall quickly dropped to nothing. "Instead, the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins will play on February 22nd, while the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs instead play on May 2nd. The reason for the delay…"

Here, Dumbledore paused for a moment, twinkling eyes wandering over the crowd before landing on Harry and Hermione. "…is that the Department of Magical Games and Sports heard about the most unorthodox gear and tactics used by our very own Gryffindors during their last game and is most eager to see both in action. Alas, several of the department's biggest names will be out of the country in February, so they have agreed instead to descend upon us in May. I hope you will all make them feel welcome. But now, Hogwarts, with an open heart and an empty stomach, I say unto you in the words of my friend Takeshi Kaga… allez manger!"

With a flourish of Dumbledore's hand, food appeared on the four long house tables and the volume immediately jumped to near deafening levels as the students dug in, eagerly discussing the news. Harry's fellow first years scattered up the table as the other six members of the quidditch team descended on their end, more than a little excited by the news. "Bloody hell, Harry, do you know what this means?" Wood rubbed his hands together eagerly, too agitated to bother with the food on the table. "If they're sending the senior members of the DMGS… two or three of them are pro team owners. It'd be like being scouted. It'd be better than being scouted!"

Harry couldn't resist the urge to have a bit of fun at his captain's expense, knowing that playing keeper professionally was the boy's greatest ambition. "Actually, to be fair, Wood? They're coming to scout Hermione and me. You're just sort of… there. They might even order you grounded for the match so they can see Hermione play keeper."

Blood draining from his face, Wood's jaw dropped. "Bloody hell. You're right." Frantically looking around the table, his eyes jumped from one member of the team to the next. "You two work better together so I couldn't just… wait… wait… Alicia! You trained with Charlie last year while you were just a reserve, right? So… you could replace Potter as seeker, and I could put a Weasley at chaser, and the wonder twins could be our beaters!" The Weasley twins shot Wood a glare that threatened horribly embarrassing retribution for such an act and he gulped before turning to the trio of chasers. "Or Alicia could take seeker, Angelina or Katie could sit, and they could be chasers?"

"That's not really fair to the others, though." Hermione wilted under the look Wood bestowed upon her before steeling herself and glaring. "What? It's not! It's your fault you got knocked out last game and I played so well they want to see me. Why should the rest of the team get punished and shuffled because of you? No, I'm playing keeper or nothing. And if you don't want to lead from the bench for one game, you can explain to our visitors why they came all the way out here for nothing." Huffing, she turned away from Wood and began to pile food on her plate.

Harry could see the struggle playing out in Wood's mind… did he do what was best for himself by ensuring he was in the game as the keeper so he could be seen by these important men? Or did he do what was best for the team and house by riding the bench, since that was the only way for Hermione to start without shuffling most of the others? Harry decided to help his captain out a bit with the decision. "You're not going to change her mind."

Glancing back and forth between Hermione and Harry a few times, Wood slumped. "No?"

"She's stubborn. And she's right. It's not really fair. Plus Hermione and I are too small to be beaters, and I don't think I have the arm to be a chaser." Wood sighed in defeat and nodded, and Harry perked up as he went into his bag and pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill. "Now, since Hermione is going to be out on the pitch instead of you and will be calling plays for the chasers… I have a few ideas for you to look at."

Wood arched a brow as Harry sketched out a rough ellipse on the paper, adding a trio of Xs to denote the players before putting them into motion using his wand. "I thought you weren't a chaser, Potter."

Shrugging, Harry added the opposing team's chasers and animated them as well before looking up. "I'm not. Doesn't mean I can't know a few things. You remember who my dad is, right? James Potter, star chaser of Gryffindor? Almost went pro?" Wood nodded and Harry sighed in relief at the acceptance of his flimsy story. Ginny was the one who'd actually created these plays, not his father, and Harry wasn't sure exactly how he'd react to seeing other girls playing out the moves formerly only used by his beloved and her hand-picked wingmen. Oh well. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. "Now, this is something they came up with to keep from blatching when the other team tries the Hawkshead Attacking Formation. It's called Catch, and…"

Days passed, then weeks, then months. Winter bled into spring and the snow that suffocated the Hogwarts grounds melted away to refill the lake, the water being soaked up by plants as the song of the green echoed across the land. Classes proceeded exactly as Harry remembered them, the only real difference in his life being that his quidditch practices focused on drilling new chaser tactics into Hermione and the Flying Foxes, as he'd jokingly started calling them, rather than practicing moves for his own position.

A quill scratched faintly against parchment, forming familiar runes under his supervision, and Harry amended that. There were two real differences between his past life and this one: quidditch practice and the fact that he now held tutoring sessions.

Harry sighed as he watched further elder futhark runes emerge from Cordelia's quill. The dream Kate had mentioned an ancient runes group, implying that Cordelia had started it, and so he hadn't exactly been surprised when she'd shown up clutching a copy of his _Quibbler_ interview and begged for tutoring. Other students had filtered in after, working themselves into the spots that Cordelia hadn't already claimed for herself. Already he was planning to transition from one-on-one tutoring to group work next year, if for no other reason than to free up some of his own time.

Then again, unless he was really crafty, moving away from one-on-one time would have one disadvantage. Harry leaned a bit further to his left, ostensibly to check the answer Cordelia was scrawling on the worksheet assigned by Professor Babbling. In reality, he simply enjoyed the view afforded him by the fact that Cordelia often doffed her house tie and vest as soon as class ended for the day, releasing the top two or three buttons of her blouse as well as she let her metaphorical - and sometimes literal - hair down. Since he was only eleven as far as she knew and 'too young' for that sort of thing, it probably never even dawned on her how much he would be enjoying the view she provided him.

At least in Cordelia's presence, he could admire a girl and not feel guilty about it, and so Harry took advantage of it as often as possible. Fifteen to his mental seventeen was on the lower end of the acceptable range as far as he was concerned, but it was a very welcome change from the ten and eleven-year olds who were currently expressing their interest in him in one way or another. Eyes raking eagerly over the pale flesh of her breasts, Harry paused and contemplated a series of dark freckles on the upper slope of her left breast before tilting his head a hair to the right. From this angle, it almost looked like Odin's Wain…

Suddenly, the doors swung open with a bang and the volume in the Great Hall jumped from whispers of studying group to a louder rumble of outright conversation. With great effort, Harry managed to pull his attention away from Cordelia's cleavage and looked up to find a girl in a Hufflepuff uniform stomping through the hall, muttering under her breath. It took Harry a moment to properly recognize her without the mop of red hair she'd had when they first met, now sheered down to a short fuzz covered her head. "Candace?"

Harry rose from the bench in a daze, waving off Cordelia's protests as he crossed the hall. What the hell had happened to the poor girl? That wasn't the haircut of a girl in the mood to try something new, that was… that was the hairstyle of someone dyed her hair in her sleep and she had to cut it to get the blue out. Or someone with spell damage. Or maybe something had removed a bunch of her hair for her and so the rest had to go too. Harry thought back to that day's date in his first year in his home universe, and then it clicked. Norbert. The Norwegian Ridgeback had taken out a chunk of Hagrid's beard with a small burp of flame in his original universe. Had Candace fallen victim to Hagrid's newest pet as well?

Waiting until she threw herself down in a seat, Harry sidled up behind her and leaned in so his lips were near her ear. She stiffened at his presence before relaxing and pulling books out of her bag, intent on ignoring him just like all the others staring at her at the moment. Harry wasn't going to let her, though. "Interesting new look, Wiedmaier."

"Thank you. I like it." Candace pulled out a pot of ink and a quill, unrolling some parchment and cracking open one of her books. "Now, is there anything else or will you leave me alone now?"

Chuckling, Harry straightened up. "As you wish. Oh, and Candace?" The redhead froze, her quill halfway to the parchment, waiting for his words. "Give Hagrid and Norbert my regards, okay?"

Candace's jaw dropped as she turned to look back over her shoulder at him. "How..?"

"Gryffindor Tower has one heck of a view. And you need to learn not to wander the corridors cursing under your breath. The walls have ears around here. Some of them are right chatty, too. Oh, and two words you might find handy? _Aisig falt_. I wrote Mum and she got it from the MacFustys. Thought it'd be for Hagrid, but you probably would enjoy it too." Waggling his fingers at the stunned Hufflepuff, Harry made his way back over to Cordelia and reclaimed his seat. "Now, where were we?"

Fiddling with the straps on his shin guard, Harry frowned. While they were smaller and lighter than the monstrous ones Hermione wore when she played keeper, they still felt huge compared to the loaner set of thin brown dragonhide pads he'd used for the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match. But if they saved him from a broken leg, he couldn't really complain. His biceps and thighs felt distressingly bared compared to his shins and forearms, but that was life. His parents had run through a few variations but failed to come up with something that both had joints and was flexible enough to give a player a full range of mobility, and being able to survive bludger hits was useless if the seeker couldn't grab the snitch. Grabbing his helmet, twin to Hermione's, he slipped it on and looked up at his teammates. "Ready?"

Angelina nodded and laughed, flipping a crisp up into the air. Her dark hair swished gently as she ducked under it, letting it fall neatly into her mouth. After chewing and swallowing, the leader of the Flying Foxes smiled at Harry. "I am. With you and Hermione out there, the three of us barely have to do anything."

"Funny, Angelina." Harry stuck out his tongue; the three had relaxed and opened up a bit more to him over the past few months. The Weasley twins were still oddly distant to him, perhaps because they simply didn't care to lower themselves to hanging out with a first year? Harry couldn't really explain it, but decided not to let it bother him. He had plenty of other people who enjoyed his company. "Just remember, it's you three versus me. First to one-fifty wins. So unless you're that eager to get a Harry Makeover, I'd fly hard."

Stealing one last crisp from Angelina, Katie patted him on the back as she passed. "Please. We're so going to whoop you. By this time Monday, you're going to be begging for a boy's uniform back." Biting her crisp in half, she looked over at their new starting keeper. "You ready, Hermione? Last chance to change your mind and give Oliver his position back."

Hermione snorted, yanking on a helmet that matched Harry's in construction if not in design, hers bearing a roaring lioness while his was emblazoned with a griffin. "Gryffindors go forward, Katie. So let's get out there before Hooch decides we're taking too long and makes us forfeit the match. That'd be an embarrassing end to the DMGS's visit, huh?"

Suitably chastised, the girls handed their snacks over to the waiting Wood and grabbed their brooms as the Weasley twins each brought a broom up to rest on one shoulder and a beater's bat on the other. As they stepped out into the sunlight, Harry could hear Lee Jordan announcing them one by one. "…chasers Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet. Playing beater are Fred and George Weasley… and don't ask me which is which, because even I don't know. At seeker is Hogwarts' own new wonder boy, Harry Potter. And starting at keeper and making the team captain himself ride the bench today… Hermione Granger!"

"You know, we really ought to look into getting some speakers set up here. Play some music to pump up the crowd." Hermione grinned over at Harry as they made their way out, following behind the Weasley twins as they approached the center of the pitch. "We will… we will… rock you!"

Harry laughed outright at the concept as his vivid imagination went to work, picturing an entire stand full of Gryffindors screaming along to Queen songs. "You know… it's not an entirely bad idea. We should talk to McGonagall and have her talk to the headmaster about it. Be a great way to mess with the Slytherins, which means she should like it."

"Professor McGonagall, Harry."

"Yes, Mother."

Hooch too proved herself to be a pureblood, failing to recognize Hermione's follow up gesture as something rude. There was the standard warning about a clean game as the six chasers formed up around the white-haired referee and then the whistle shrilled sharply as Hooch tossed the ball into the air. Angelina's fingertips brushed against the quaffle, sending it spiraling towards Katie.

The ball touched Katie's hand.

Katie pulled the ball in, tucking it against her body as she took off. Cutting off Angelina with a move so close that the dark-skinned girl nearly got a face full of bristles, Katie rolled and rocketed between two Hufflepuff chasers as she gained altitude, heading down the pitch at top speed. "…and the Gryffindors are off to a good start, showing it's not just Potter and Granger that help them win games. Bell slips between Macavoy and Applebee, making a beeline for Fleet and the Hufflepuff rings." Harry grinned as he watched Katie close in on the poor petrified Hufflepuff keeper, weaving back and forth as she closed in on her target. "She jukes left… right… left… she throws… score!"

Chuckling as he watched the Hufflepuffs try to collect their dignity and the quaffle, Harry floated lazily past one of the Gryffindor stands and high fived Katie as she passed. Looking down at his peers, an inane thought popped into Harry's mind: they needed a mascot. If the Irish National Team could have leprechauns and the Bulgarians could have Veela, why couldn't Gryffindor have something to inspire the crowd? A griffin… would probably end up mauling Malfoy and being put down by McNair in short order. Same with a lion. Hmm. Harry eyed a clump of older girls with red and gold paint splashed on their faces, cheering and waving red and gold pom-poms. Well, they weren't quite Veela…

A figure in yellow and black rocketed past, her blonde hair slapping noisily against the side of Harry's helmet, and he wheeled around to watch her go. While they couldn't cast any spells during the game, there was nothing that prohibited them from charming their helmets ahead of time so they could communicate easily during the game. "Hey Hermione… Pop Goes the Weasel?"

Hermione nodded as she began to drift forward, voice sounding clearly in his ears as the charms on his helmet made it sound like they were sitting together in the common room study instead of halfway across the pitch from each other. "Dibs on the punching. You know I've got the better right jab." That she did, Harry had to admit. He'd felt it enough times, after all.

Leaning forward, Harry took off in pursuit of Applebee as Hermione began to pick up speed, racing head-on at the Hufflepuff chaser. The blonde waggled to the left and then the right, trying to shake Hermione's kamikaze run, but each time the Gryffindor keeper corrected her own course. "I don't know what Granger and Potter are up to but if they fail, the rings are completely unprotected and it's an easy ten points for… oh!" At the last second, Hermione shot past Applebee on the Hufflepuff's right, just as Harry made the same pass to the left. Her arm shot out, punching the ball out of the chaser's possession and sending it right into Harry's waiting hands. "Holy hell, I've seen the chasers do something like that, but never the keeper and the seeker! What in the world will that pair come up with next?"

There was a whistle as the Hufflepuffs descended on Madame Hooch, protesting the move, but since Hermione hadn't actually hit Applebee and it was hard to prove intent, there was no blatching call and the game quickly resumed. Hermione whipped the ball up the pitch to Alicia, who waited for the other two chasers to form up before starting her own run on the goals.

After her little show, the Hufflepuffs evidently thought Hermione was a greater threat than Wood and she quickly found both bludgers batted her way in rapid succession. One bounced off her left shin as she rolled her broom to bring the fat pad into position, the other deflected as she batted it away with her right blocker. Both beaters received obscene gestures and Harry was momentarily worried Hermione would abandon the scoring area to chase them down and deliver payback, but she kept her head in the game and settled for glaring at them from her perch in front of the rings.

Leaving the other players to their own devices for a bit, Harry pulled his attention away from the battle over the quaffle and made slow circuits of the pitch as he looked for the snitch. On his fourth time past the professors' box, he finally took the time to look down into it. His family was there, all four decked out in red and gold, as were Sirius, Amy, and Cassie. Then he noticed a very unexpected someone, pulling up on the handle of his broom and coming to an abrupt stop. "Luna?"

"Hullo, Harry Potter." Wide silver eyes stared up at him from underneath a very familiar lion hat as Luna grinned and waved. "Lovely weather for a game, isn't it? Pity the Hufflepuffs seem to be suffering from Loser's Lurgy today. It would be more interesting if they could actually put up a fight."

Professor Sprout puffed up in indignation even as a few others snickered, but was cut off as she tried to respond by the mouth on Luna's lion hat opening and releasing a very realistic roar. Action on the pitch actually came to a halt as the sound rolled across the pitch and everyone turned to stare at a beaming Luna. Harry just shook his head; some things never changed. Giving her a wave, he turned and dove away, returning to the hunt for the snitch.

After a second, the others followed his lead and commentary resumed as well. "With the way the Gryffindors are starting to pull away, I have to agree. Heh. Loser's Lurgy. You're a funny girl. Can't wait to see you at Hogwarts next year."

"Jordan!"

"What? It is. And it's seventy to thirty… err, make that eighty to thirty as Johnson puts another one through the rings. I hear the chasers and Harry Potter have a bet going… whoever scores more points before the end of the game wins. Harry, might want to find that snitch soon. I hear there's a girls' uniform in your future if they win and trust me, you don't have the legs for it."

Harry snorted; he'd be a bit worried if he did have the legs to pull the look off, honestly. But Jordan did have a good point and so he sped up his laps around the pitch, eyes flicking back and forth quickly as he sought any glimpse of gold that could prove to be the snitch. Then… there!

Leaning down, Harry took off like a shot in pursuit of the snitch. Almost as if it knew it had been spotted, it made a few uncertain moves before taking off straight up into the air. Tracking it, Harry waited until he was almost directly beneath it before yanking his broom handle up and shooting skyward in pursuit. Down below, he could see Diggory climbing in vain, hoping to catch up on an inferior broom but slowly falling back as Harry closed in on the snitch.

The distance closed slowly and Harry stretched out his arm, fingers extended to the max as he sought to curl them around his quarry. Almost… almost… metal brushed against his fingertips and Harry pushed against the broom, launching himself upward as he wrapped his fingers around the snitch. Got it!

Except he didn't have his broom anymore. Harry's eyes widened as his Nimbus fell away beneath him, watching the brown wood tumble earthward for a moment before gravity grabbed him as well and he followed suit. "Bollocks."

"Oh no! Potter is off his broom at Merlin only knows what height. I think he got the snitch before dropping but we won't know that until he comes down… after we pry it out of his fingers." Harry glared over at Jordan; oh ye of little fail. Reaching into his robes, Harry drew his wand with a flourish. Hopefully this wouldn't draw him a foul but considering the game ended with the catching of the snitch, it technically wasn't illegal. Something for the DMGS to argue about when he touched down, maybe.

Shifting Rensaren from a wand to an axe cost him precious seconds but he wasn't sure if all of its properties applied in both forms and he wasn't willing to experiment now. Harry spread his arms wide and willed himself to slow, feeling it take effect as his robes began to flap less frantically. Would he be able to do enough before he hit the ground? Merlin he hoped so…

Harry growled as the earth continued to rush up at him. He really needed to practice flying with the axe more, starting as soon as humanly possible, because he absolutely sucked at it. Fine. If his choices were reveal another ability in front of a crowd or splatter his brains across the pitch… thrusting his axe skyward, Harry willed himself into energy and disappeared in a burst of bright lightning that rocketed up into the clouds. A return bolt came a moment later, striking the center ring behind Hermione and skittering down the gold pole before slamming into the sand at the base of the rings. It left behind Harry, standing on a sheet of glass and breathing hard but otherwise alright.

There was a moment of stunned silence, then Jordan's voice returned. "My God…"

"Actually, I'm not sure where things between Harry and Daphne are standing, but if she hasn't already claimed him, I have dibs. So really, her god. Or mine. If he's mine, I might be convinced to loan him out if you ask nicely, though." Dropping to his knees as Hooch rushed over to him, Harry threw back his head and laughed at Luna's commentary. Leaning on Rensaren, Harry held out the snitch for Hooch's inspection, who nodded decisively before taking it and blowing sharply on her whistle. "Oh look, Harry won. Go Harry!"

Raising his other hand, Harry waved to the cheering crowd as he pushed himself to his feet. Idly, he wondered what the score was. The girls had racked up ninety points when last he checked in… surely they hadn't scored seven goals during his pursuit of the snitch, right? He couldn't have lost their bet. "And the final score is two hundred and forty to thirty as Potter nabs the snitch for a hundred and fifty points and victory over the Gryffindor chasers in their side bet. Hopefully Harry's nicer to you than you would have been to him, ladies. And that's all for today. I'm Lee Jordan and I'll see you all back here on June 6th for Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw."

"Harry, m'boy! Impressive game." Ludo Bagman shook Harry's hand enthusiastically before turning to Hermione and doing the same. "Not quite the level of viciousness we heard about from the two of you tactics-wise, but it was still interesting to see that fascinating equipment of yours. Muggle sports gear, is it?"

Harry nodded, passing his helmet to Bagman for inspection. "Yes, sir. Hermione brought it with her from a game called field hockey that she played before Hogwarts. And it's hard to play like that against the Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws. They play too fair. With the Slytherins, though… well, even after the game ended, they tried to put Hermione in the hospital wing just to prove a point. We don't really feel bad about knocking them around. If you want, though, we could put our memories in a pensieve for you and the others to watch?"

After exchanging looks with the half-dozen men he'd come to Hogwarts with and receiving nods all around, Bagman nodded at Harry and passed the red and gold helmet back, the Gryffindor stuffing it back into his duffle bag. "Very good. Well, I remember how we liked to party after games back when I played for the Wasps. I'll leave you kids to it."

"Awful nice of him, considering the others ditched us half an hour ago to head up to the tower and start celebrating." Hermione glared at Bagman's retreating back as she swung her bulging bag of gear up over one shoulder. "C'mon. I'm so hungry I could eat a hippogriff."

"Think the hippogriff would have a problem with that idea." Harry dodged Hermione's fist as they exited the changing room, surprised to find the pitch almost totally abandoned. He'd spoken with his parents, sisters, and Sirius and his family right after the game, so Harry hadn't expected them to stick around while he showered, changed, and dealt with the DMGS delegation. Still, it was a bit surprising that Daphne and Su hadn't stuck around to wait for him and Hermione. Oh well.

Crossing the grounds, Harry and Hermione made their way back into the school and slowly ascended the seven flights of stairs up to Gryffindor Tower. The Fat Lady, already half-drunk from her celebration with Violet and a number of other women from nearby pictures, hiccupped and swung open at the sight of them. Beyond, Harry could hear a party in full swing and he steeled himself as he bent down and passed through the portrait hole.

Harry's eyes took a moment to adjust to the light of the common room. The room's windows were small and recessed, not providing sufficient light for the room even on the brightest of days and the students had neglected to light all the candles and torches for the afternoon, leaving the room steeped in shadows for their celebration. Not that he was going to say anything about it; he and Ginny had taken advantage of shadowy corners more than once after a particularly good game.

Trying to get his focus off of his ex-fiancé before he wandered too far down a road he didn't wish to travel, Harry looked around the room until his eyes landed on a head of pale blonde hair and his brow furrowed. Was that… "Luna?"

"Hullo, Harry. I like your common room, although I'm surprised Daphne hasn't tried to redecorate it yet. Isn't this a bit too much of one color for her?" Harry blinked; was that a joke or was Luna Lovegood of all people being catty? Daphne seemed to think it was the latter, glaring at the younger girl from across the couch. Luna ignored it, patting a spot on the couch between herself and Daphne. "Come. Sit, sit. That was a marvelously exciting game today."

Harry cautiously took a seat between Daphne and Luna. It was for the greater good, he reckoned: at least with him as a buffer zone, there was a lesser chance of the two of them fighting. Su was perched on the arm of a nearby chair, leaving the seat itself for Hermione. Looking over at Luna, he realized she was wearing something utterly familiar and yet… not. "Luna? Where did you get your hands on a Hogwarts uniform?"

Giggling, Luna reached down and tugged on the bottom of her black vest. "Same place as everyone else, Harry. Madam Malkin's." The others had a laugh at his expense as Harry rolled his eyes and leaned back. Yeah, he'd walked into that one pretty well. Given she was a pureblood and practically guaranteed to be coming to Hogwarts in the fall, he supposed it made sense for her to have shopped already. After all, certain stores that depended on student traffic to drive their sales would be desperate for business and she probably would have found some excellent sales.

The uniform wasn't quite right, though, much like anything else Luna wore. The crisp white short-sleeved blouse, black vest with the Hogwarts crest - which would be replaced by a house patch after sorting - and knee-length black skirt were all perfectly normal, but instead of either the black tie of an unsorted student or a house color tie, hers was rainbow striped. It matched the rainbow striped knee-high toe socks she was wearing, adding a splash of color to the otherwise drab black and white uniform. Her butterbeer cork necklace rested against her collarbone atop the vest and Harry realized with a flash of guilt that he hadn't worn his since returning from Daphne's house. "So, what do you think of my outfit, Harry? Next year is going to be ever so fun…"

This fell into the same category as 'does this outfit make me look fat', Harry knew, and he was loathe to stick his foot in his mouth. After struggling for a moment to come up with an appropriate answer, he settled upon something that he thought she'd accept. "It's… unique."

That summed up Luna herself pretty well too, come to think of it 


	18. Chapter 18

18\. An Afternoon at Potter Place

Sipping from a cup of tea, Lily Potter née Evans sat and watched the softly crackling fire in the stone fireplace, wondering when her life had been reduced to this. Twelve years ago, she'd had plans to go somewhere… be someone. Then she'd forgotten to take her potion on the wrong night and… well, she wouldn't trade Harry, Jasmine, or Rose for anything in the world, but it had put a bit of a crimp on things. Especially when her friendship with Alice Longbottom dissolved; the two had been planning to put Harry and Neville into her mother-in-law Augusta's care since the wizarding world had evidently yet to evolve to the point of having daycare centers, allowing them both to have careers. Then Voldemort had struck, Alice had become a snob with no time for Lily, and a second pregnancy had sealed her fate.

Hmmph. Lily shook her head at the absurdity of the thought. She was acting like she was old and decrepit, rather than a young mother of three. In four months, all of them would be on the train to Hogwarts and she would be off to start her new job with the MacFustys, working on the railroad that supplied their dragon reserve on the Isle of Skye. She'd have holidays off to spend with her children and during the summer… well, they were growing up fast. Harry was already grown, in body if not in mind. She could trust him if not the twins to make sure the house didn't burn down while she was at work each day.

Harry. He was the reason she was sitting here, about to welcome strangers into her home. He was helpful… he was thoughtful… big brothers were supposed to torment their little sisters, not arrange play dates for them. It just wasn't natural. And as guilty as it made her feel, Lily was finding it harder and harder to miss the little prat her real son had been growing into when the older, alternate universe Harry decided to liberate his body for his own use.

Speaking of the impending play date and her strange visitors, at least one of them would be familiar to her. Harry had suggested inviting Cassie Black over to help her make friends with some of the girls she'd be attending school with, while using others as a method of forcing the twins to accept Cassie's presence. Pure brilliance, in Lily's opinion, although she was surprised he was actually sparing Cassie any thought. She wasn't someone he'd known in his old world, Sirius somehow ending up a prisoner of Azkaban and then an outlaw and dying childless, so it wasn't a case akin to Luna or Lara's. Maybe she'd ask when he came home at the end of the year.

The other two, though… she'd met one of them a single time, while the other was a complete mystery to her. Luna Lovegood had been one of the three to send her son a marriage contract, albeit as a trap to lure him over and talk. Lily wasn't sure how she felt about the strange little blonde; the contract incident hadn't endeared her to Lily and their brief meeting at Harry's quidditch match hadn't improved her opinion any. But Harry insisted she'd been a great friend of his - one of only two - in the other world, even if she was a bit left of center, and so Lily felt she should probably start learning to accept Luna's presence.

As for the other girl Harry had recommended visit… Lily had no idea who Lara Ramsay was, apart from being someone else that Harry had known in another life. Lily had sent out Hedwig with an invitation after receiving Harry's letter, the reply coming on a piece of lined paper torn from a spiral-bound notebook and written with blue ink. A muggleborn like her? A half-blood like Harry? Likely the latter, given she was coming by floo, but either way, she was someone Lily knew nothing about.

She really needed to learn to ask Harry more questions, she decided.

The fire flared the beautiful green color characteristic of floo travel and Lily set her cup down as she rose to greet the new arrival. She let out a breath she hadn't even been aware she'd been holding when she took in the ducked head crowned with long, straight brown hair. Cassie. The girl she regarded as her third daughter straightened up, curtsying as she smiled shyly. "Good afternoon, Aunt Lily."

"Cassie. Thank God." Lily hustled over, waving her wand over the girl's black dress to remove the fine layer of soot and ash that she'd acquired in travel. "I know Amy drags… err, I know your mother has you come with her most of the time when she has tea with her friends. Do you know who Lara Ramsay is?"

Cassie shook her head, very carefully seating herself at the table and folding her hands in her lap. "Mother hasn't taken me to a tea party in… almost a year, I think. She says it's for my own good, because she doesn't want me to make friends with girls who will just turn on me when I grow into my powers."

Sighing, Lily turned away to keep her disgust from showing on her face. While she wouldn't tell the Blacks how to raise their child, Lily really didn't know how to feel about Amy projecting her own neuroses onto Cassie. After all, how many friends could a girl possibly make if she was constantly being told that making friends was a waste of time and they'd all betray her in the end? After all, Amy herself had friends these days, so it wasn't impossible for a Veela to have a healthy and normal social life. Lily made up her mind then and there that if today was a success, she'd host daily play dates for an army of strangers if it meant poor Cassie went to Hogwarts with at least one friend.

"Well, I'm sure that…" Lily trailed off as the fire flared again, this time disgorging a black-haired girl who stumbled upon arrival, dropping to her knees and squealing as she skidded across the floor. She came to a halt at Lily's feet, rolling onto her back and blowing her hair out of her eyes. Green eyes, more olive than the emerald that Lily and her son possessed, stared up as the girl smiled and giggled. It was infectious, Lily soon discovered, and she found herself laughing as she offered the poor girl a hand. "Don't use the floo much, I take it?"

Letting Lily hoist her to her feet, Lara looked around curiously as she tucked a shockingly white lock of hair behind her ear. "No, I use the floo plenty. It just hates me every time." Turning her attention from her surroundings to the people in the room with her, she eyed Cassie for a moment before moving on to Lily. "You must be Mrs. Potter. Thanks for inviting me."

Good Lord. And she'd thought the worst time she'd have of deciphering a Scottish accent was that time she'd listened to Professor McGonagall tear into the Marauders for a particularly bad prank in seventh year. Lily gestured to the table and waited until Lara had seated herself beside Cassie before removing the stasis charm protecting the biscuits she'd laid out, another flick of her wand quickly bringing a pot of water to boil so they too could have tea. "Please, call me Lily. Or if you end up visiting a lot, Aunt Lily. Mrs. Potter was my husband's thoroughly unpleasant mother, God rest her soul."

"Oh. Okay, erm, Lily. Nice to meet you." Lara looked over at the floo for a moment before shaking her head and sighing. "I wonder how long Luna's gonna pester Mum about the new wireless phone we just bought. It's really not that interesting if you ask me."

As she served tea to the two girls, preparing a third cup as well for the yet to arrive Luna, Lily looked Lara over. Denim had yet to make its way into the wizarding world and so Lara's jean skirt stood out compared to Cassie's frilly black dress and Lily's own robes. The rest of her was a rather beguiling mix of wizard and muggle as well: she wore glasses with thick purple plastic frames and a rosary made of glossy black beads rested atop a three-quarters sleeve jersey shirt that was purple with gold sleeves, the colors of the Pride of Portree. Flying back and forth across Lara's chest was line art of three figures on brooms and every so often, the three would slam into each other before the lines wriggled and reshaped into the words 'Chasers do it better as a group'. Cute. Lily cast about for something to start a conversation with. "So you have a telephone? Half-blood, I'm guessing, since you like quidditch and have charmed clothes?"

Lara nodded, nibbling on a biscuit as she kept staring over at the fireplace. "Mum's a witch; she's writing a book she's hoping Hogwarts will use for Muggle Studies in a year or two. My pa's a muggle who works at BBC Scotland. He's one of the writers for An Là's sports bits. He wasn't keen on me skipping a day of school to come over, but Mum convinced him it didn't really matter. After all, I'm not going to go any further than primary in the muggle system so my grades don't really matter."

"Much as I hate to admit it, she does have a point. Although if I'd known you had school, I would have offered to have you over this weekend instead. Oh well." Lily joined Lara in watching the floo, wondering where the last member of the group was. "So, how do you know Luna?"

"Our mums went to Hogwarts together, but it's our pas who get along best. Luna's dad owns _The Quibbler_ and mine works for the Beeb, so they love to blather about their work. As for Luna, I'm the only one who'll put up with her insanity and she's the only witch I know who can understand me, so we're stuck with each other. I wasn't so sure about this, but she told me it would be fun and Mum promised to bail me out of school for the day if I agreed, so here I am." Sighing, Lara rose and smoothed her skirt down as she stomped over to the fireplace. "Oh, for the love of God. Right then, I'll go through and fetch her before Mum ends up silencing her and tossing her through the floo herself." Grabbing a handful of floo powder from the pot atop the mantle, she hurled it into the orange flames. "The… oomph!"

A colorful missile erupted from the roaring green flames, plowing into Lara and sending the pair of them sprawling back onto the floor. Lily snorted in laughter and then gaped at the stream of obscenities that began to emerge from Lara's mouth. After so many years among the more uptight wizarding world, she'd become unused to such casual profanity and felt herself blushing as Lara continued to express her displeasure with being mowed down by the new arrival. And… was that even anatomically possible?

After a few moments of struggling, the two girls got themselves sorted out and Lara hopped to her feet again, yanking Luna upright beside her. "Really, Lara, what would your mum say if she heard you saying things like that?"

"She'd mutter about whether or not letting me learn to cook from Uncle Gordon was worth the bad habits that rubbed off on me, and then she'd forgive me a few hours later after I made her dinner because she was too wrapped up in writing to keep track of time?"

"True, true." The two girls chuckled before turning to Lily, the older woman's jaw dropping as she took in her newest visitor. Luna looked like… well, a crazier version of her. Well, a crazier and younger version. Some time between their time together in the stands at the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff game and today, Luna had acquired hair the same shade of red as her own. Thankfully that was the extent of the change; she still had the same slightly vacant-looking silver eyes and the necklace made of butterbeer corks Lily had seen her wear to the game. Her attire didn't make her any more normal-looking: a simple summer dress with a pair of trousers under it, both made of a fabric that displayed a constantly swirling mix of bright colors. It was enough to make one vomit… and Lily wondered why she'd never seen Dumbledore wearing something made of it. "Hullo, Mrs. Potter. Did you know you look just like me? Except a bit older and less fashionable? Don't worry, we can have you fixed up in a jiffy. Well, except for the old part. Mum's still trying to track down the Fountain of Youth so my dad can write about it for _The Quibbler_…"

Letting her hand drift down, Lily brushed her fingers over her wand. Must… not… silence… obnoxious… child…

Taking to the air, Jasmine circled the pitch a few times before descending to hover beside the mysterious girl who'd shown up at her house for this little play date her mother and brother had arranged. When she and Rose had come downstairs, it'd been to find Luna humming quietly to herself as she served herself tea, Lara snickering, Cassie sitting so still the twins had initially thought her petrified, and their mother glaring at Luna so intensely that if looks could kill, the young redhead would be six feet under. "So what did you do to piss my mother off like that?"

Luna shrugged and smiled innocently as she tinkered with some knobs near the head of her broom. It was supposedly a homemade broomstick her mother had come up with and Jasmine was willing to believe her. After all, who would pay money for something this odd? It looked utterly bizarre, the shaft crooked and twisting, terminating in an utterly disorganized mass of bristles that were… belching blue smoke? "I just told her that she looked like me. Except older and less fashionable. The first one is definitely true; she's the same age as my mum and my mum is older than me. And the second is true too. After all, I've been informed that wearing all one color is quite unfashionable and your mum was wearing all green."

"And wearing every color known to wizardkind all at once is any better?" Jasmine was hoping she didn't come off as mean; she was merely curious as to how Luna's mind worked. After all, she couldn't afford to alienate her fellow redhead: out of the other four girls currently on the property, Luna was the only one willing to mount a broom and play catch with her out on the quidditch pitch. Although… since when was Luna a redhead? Hadn't she been a blonde at the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match? An almost Malfoy-esque blonde? "Not to mention this whole dress and trousers thing you have going…"

Rolling her broom so she hung upside-down beside Jasmine, Luna looked up at her hips and then over at her new friend. "Well, if I did this in just a dress, I'd be showing the world a bit more than I want to. But wearing just trousers isn't ladylike, according to… well, everyone. So why not wear both? And if all one color is unfashionable, then logically wearing all colors has to be the most fashionable option, no?"

Jasmine blinked. Luna had a point there. An odd, probably illogical despite her claims of logic, point, but a point nonetheless. "I guess that makes sense. Still, I think I'll stick to only two or three colors. Red and gold. Or maybe black, red, and gold."

"Ahh. You're hoping to be in your brother's house when you get to Hogwarts?" Luna's broom accelerated as she pulled away, still trailing a bit of blue smoke from her bristles as she rocketed away down the length of the pitch. Rising as she went, Luna shot through the center ring before diving towards the earth, winding her way around the pole before pulling up inches from the ground and racing back over to Jasmine. Pulling up beside the gobsmacked Jasmine, she grinned. "Or is it another Gryffindor quidditch player you're hoping to spend six years with?"

"Bloody hell, can you teach me how to fly like that? Hermione would definitely notice me if…" Jasmine realized what she'd just admitted to and abruptly closed her mouth, blushing fiercely. Except Luna had already made a reference to that herself. Sweet Merlin, was there anybody who wasn't aware of her crush? "Am I that obvious?"

Luna's silver eyes bored into hers and Jasmine shivered; the girl really needed to blink before September 1st or she was going to be creeping a whole lot of people out. It felt like Luna was staring straight into her soul. "Well, a piece of advice? If you don't want it to be known, you should learn to deny it when someone else brings it up. And perhaps not admit it yourself." Floating over to the crate that held the pitch's set of balls, Luna tilted to one side and grabbed the quaffle. "That, and Harry and Daphne were talking about it when they thought I was asleep. Although in his defense, I am a very good faker."

Oh. Great. So wait a minute, if Harry had been discussing it with his friends, did that mean he'd talked to Hermione about her? Then again, it wasn't like Hermione didn't know. After that whole embarrassing kiss situation back in January, there was no chance she didn't. Still, she'd have to punch her brother when he got home from school. Even if Hermione knew, that didn't mean the rest of the world needed to know too. "So can you help me learn how to fly like you? My dad flies really well, but he's really busy these days and my mom flies about as well as a brick. Actually, a brick flies in a straight line if you throw it…"

"I guess. Never played quidditch before, though, so I don't know how much help I'm going to be there." Luna looked down at the red quaffle in her hand, brow furrowing, before hurling it at Jasmine. "Although if all it takes is throwing a ball through some rings… how hard can it be?"

Jasmine caught the ball, clenching her thighs tighter around her broomstick as she wobbled a bit. "Well, there is the fact you're moving and throwing, plus the wind. And three other chasers, a keeper, and two bludgers. It's harder than it looks." Whipping through a quick turn, Jasmine scowled as her long red hair whipped around her head, tugging at her scalp and then slapping at her face. "Gahh! How do girls play like this?"

Chuckling, Luna raced past, keeping one hand on the handle of her broom as she rolled upside down and batted the ball out of Jasmine's hands, taking advantage of her distraction. "I believe it's called a braid." To quote her mother, 'Thank you, Obvious Girl'. Luna dove and caught the ball, floating back up to Jasmine's level and spinning it as she balanced it atop the tip of her index finger. "Or we could cut it."

"That…" Jasmine reached up, fingering the long red locks she'd been growing out for as long as she could remember. Just like her sister. Rose. Hmm. They'd probably be going into the same house when they got to Hogwarts, since they were so similar. Did she really want to have an identical twin who was so identical that people would mix them up, like those awful Weasley twins she'd met when the family took Harry to King's Cross in September? So if it helped people tell her and Rose apart and helped her on the pitch… how could she possibly lose? "…sounds like a great idea! Hmm. Do you know what Gwenog Jones looks like?" Luna nodded. "How do you think I'd look with her haircut? Except in red, obviously?"

Luna drifted closer, tossing the quaffle to Jasmine. Jasmine grunted as it smacked into her chest but caught it before it fell to earth, throwing it back to Luna and pouting when the other girl caught it easily with one hand, pulling it in to tuck it against her body. No fair. The girl who didn't seem to have any real interest in it had better skills than she did? "Could work. Come on, let's get inside and try it, then come back out and play once you have more suitable hair. What's the worst that can happen?"

Wincing, Jasmine followed Luna as her fellow redhead descended to the ground. Famous last words, those were.

"So Cassie, you're one of those… Vellum things?"

"Veela. And I'm only half. My mother's a Veela and my father is a wizard. It makes me a half-breed, rather like how you're a half-blood."

"Ah. So, how long until this aura thing of yours is supposed to kick in. Because we've been sitting here talking for at least half an hour, and I still don't think you're pretty." Lara paused and pondered her words for a moment before offering a revised version. "I mean, you're pretty and all in an 'ooh, isn't that lamp pretty' way but not in the 'trip over myself and do stupid things to impress you' way you mentioned."

That made Rose chuckle as she looked up from the bottle of blood red muggle nail polish Lara had brought with her. She had to admit, the stuff smelled truly foul and took time to dry but really, how easy could it be to point a wand accurately at one's own fingertips? Especially when it came time to color the nails on her dominant hand? Even if she was a Potter, there were some muggle conveniences that she was definitely going to stick to no matter what her pureblood peers at Hogwarts said. Besides, going through all the different colors Lara owned to help each other pick out the perfect color had been fun. "Lara, you do realize you're a girl, right? And that Cassie's a girl?" Lara nodded. "The aura is a mating thing, so why would you be affected?" Left unsaid were her own ponderings as to whether Jasmine would be affected or not due to her leanings. "At any rate, she's too young. It probably won't even show up until next summer or so."

Lara scowled and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "Well I didn't know that, did I? She was all going on about girls ending up hating her because of it. I thought maybe you lot were uptight about that sort of thing and so the aura would make girls find her pretty in the wrong sort of way and then hate her for making them feel tha… stop laughing! It made sense in my head!"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. After all, we know more about magic but if we ever visit the muggle world, you'll have one up on us." Although with how obsessed Lara was with the Pride of Portree, she obviously had some exposure to the wizarding world. Just the same priorities as Jasmine, Rose assumed: sports, sports, and sports. "But no, most witches generally end up disliking Veela because they get jealous. Even my dad can't help himself from staring at Cassie's mum sometimes, and he's had years and years to get used to her."

Voices in the hall disrupted their conversation and the trio watched as Luna led a considerably shorter-haired Jasmine past. Rose and Cassie's jaws dropped, leaving Lara the only one capable of commenting. "Heh. I guess you're not completely identical anymore."

Launching herself to her feet, Rose dashed out of her room and down the hall in pursuit of Luna and Jasmine. "Hey!" The redheads looked back at her, Jasmine's eyes widening as she tugged at Luna's hand, trying to get away. "Oh no you don't!" Rose wrapped her hand around Jasmine's other wrist and Luna surrendered her grip, allowing Rose to pull her sister into Harry's room, closing the door behind them. "What the bloody hell did you do to yourself? Dad's going to be furious!"

Jasmine sniffed, tossing her head and making it very obvious that something had changed. After all, when Rose made that same move, a curtain of red hair shifted behind her. Now, Jasmine had short red locks that barely even reached her chin. "And Mum will support me. She's a modern witch, after all. I just wanted to try a new look before we started school this fall. Don't worry, it's not your fault I'm maturing faster. After all, I am the older twin."

"By ten minutes." Nine minutes before midnight on June 6th for one of them, one minute after midnight for the other, and Jasmine treated it like a multi-year gap. Rose rolled her eyes. "And is it school, or someone at school that you want to look different for?"

Yanking her arm out of Rose's grip, Jasmine huffed and stomped out the door. "If you don't know what you're talking about, don't open your mouth, Rose. You'll just embarrass yourself. If it's that important to you, my hair was giving me problems when I flew. That's why I cut it. Nothing more, nothing less."

Rose snorted. She'd watched her sister plant one on Hermione in the kitchen, not to mention Jasmine ignoring their own brother to cheer for the muggleborn keeper at the last quidditch match they attended at Hogwarts. So even if it wasn't directly Hermione-related, it was by association: Jasmine wanted it for quidditch, which she only was interested in playing as a way of attracting Hermione's attention. Same difference.

Shaking her head in disgust, Rose turned and walked back to her room. Her initial spike of dismay at her sister's radical attempt to differentiate them was rapidly fading, being replaced by annoyance. Maybe the haircut was for the best. If her sister was going to be so incredibly crass in her pursuit of someone, Rose really didn't want to be associated with her when they got to Hogwarts. Honestly. Wasn't that why they'd spent the last year or two alternating between ignoring and ridiculing Cassie? Her awkward, obvious, and unwanted crush on their brother?

Well screw her then. Who cared if they'd done everything together for the last ten years? If Jasmine wanted to go out of her way to strike it out on her own, Rose could do likewise. Besides, Rose knew that people would undoubtedly find her the lesser of the twins if she tried to hang out with the same people as her sister. She was the quiet, bookish one who only had a minimal interest in a sport that involved watching people try to kill each other while throwing balls through hoops, Merlin forbid. Going by her mother's stories of Hogwarts, though, that was a pretty sure path to semi-outcast status. Oh well. She'd just have to have a few close friends that she really liked, then, instead of being part of the herd of sheep.

When she entered her room, Cassie and Lara were still scrambling to return to their spots on the floor and Rose sighed. "You heard that, didn't you?" They both nodded. "Fabulous. Lara, as you probably gather, my sister likes girls. Or rather, she's being obnoxiously obvious about liking a particular girl, which is causing a bit of a problem at the moment. Some wizards and witches are against that sort of thing, but it doesn't really matter to me. It's just annoying to watch someone…" She paused to glance at Cassie here before returning her attention to Lara. "…insist on being very obvious about a crush when the other person doesn't seem to care about them. A little subtlety would be nice, you know? At least with her new hair, people won't mistake her for me when she does something stupid."

"Oh. Hmm. Well, as long as she doesn't crush on me, I don't see a problem." Lara blew on her nails, every other one painted a purple to match her shirt and glasses. Sitting in front of her was a bottle of gold nail polish, ready to fill in the gaps. Wow. Someone was taking their Pride of Portree obsession a little bit too far. After all, she and Jasmine supported the Holyhead Harpies but they didn't walk around with green everything. "So, who's the girl that your sister likes and what's the problem with her?"

Rose crawled over to her nightstand and retrieved the letter she'd received from Harry, begging her to tolerate Cassie's presence and go along with the afternoon he and their mother had arranged. Opening the envelope, she pulled out a wizard photograph and handed it to Lara. "The girl with brown hair punching the boy is Hermione. The boy is my brother Harry, the one Luna tried to marry. The problem is that they're best friends. Crushing on your brother's friend can't end well. And I'm not even sure Hermione likes other girls, which means Jasmine's just making herself look stupid. And since before today, most people couldn't tell us apart, making me look stupid too."

Nodding, Lara grinned as she peeked up over the top of the photo. "You know, your brother's kind of cute. And right handy with a wand, from what I hear. As long as we don't end up being best friends, it's not weird, right?"

"No, but you'd need to get in line." Counting on her fingers, Rose listed off the girls she'd seen mentioned in the letters Harry wrote home to their mother. "There's Daphne Greengrass, the Greengrass heiress, and a girl who… Harry writes Li Su but calls her Su and so I don't know what's going on there. He and Hermione are really close, too, so Jasmine might be crushing on someone who has a crush on her own brother. Then there's Luna…" Cassie let out a little growl as Rose went on, clenching her fist before opening it to reveal a small ball of fire. "…and Cassie."

"Huh. Sounds like quite a crowd. Think I'll look elsewhere."

"Good idea."

One hand resting on Narcissa's thigh under the table, Lily took a bite of her pizza and surveyed the odd group around her kitchen table. The newly made over Jasmine - and boy was James going to shit bricks when he saw his daughter's new hairstyle - and Luna formed one clique with Luna, Lara, and Cassie all serving as a buffer zone between Jasmine and her twin. Rose had apparently found someone who, if not matching the intellect she'd inherited from her mother, was close enough for her tastes and she and Lara were talking back and forth across Cassie with the half-Veela occasionally tossing in her opinion.

While she wasn't sure what Harry had intended to result from this little gathering, Lily was happy with the outcome. Jasmine seemed to have someone - other than her obsession - who she could talk to about quidditch, Rose had at lease one friend who enjoyed intellectual pursuits, Cassie had friends period… if there was a way the day could have gone better, Lily couldn't think of it.

Well, the little argument between her two daughters she could have done without, but they were growing up and apparently apart, so she supposed that sort of thing was to be expected. Looking over at Narcissa, she pouted. Lucky woman only had to deal with one child, and one that stuck to her husband's arse at that.

On the subject of a husband who was an arse… Lily brought her hand up to rest on the table as the fireplace flared green and two red-cloaked figures emerged. "James. And…" She studied the slim, black-haired teenager standing beside her husband. "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met."

"Nymphadora, darling. I haven't seen you in ages." Leaning forward, Narcissa offered a smile that reminded Lily of a hungry shark. "How are your parents these days?"

Stepping forward, the girl's hair abruptly shortened and shifted into a mass of angry red spikes. A metamorphmagus. A rare and fascinating talent, although Lily had a feeling she wouldn't have a chance to chat with Nymphadora about her ability. "Don't call me Nymphadora. I hate that name. It's Tonks. You know, as in the muggleborn my mother got disowned for marrying?"

Narcissa only chuckled at the display. "And meetings like this make my heart break, knowing that a girl as delightful as you isn't considered part of the family." Turning to Lily, she gestured to the fuming metamorph. "This is my niece, Nymphadora Tonks. Her mother Andromeda is my older sister." As Lily digested that, the blonde turned to Cassie. "Cassie, Nymphadora here is your second cousin."

"Yes, and Cassie is my first cousin twice removed through Dorea Black." Rolling his eyes, James gestured to the stove. "Now that we're done establishing who goes where on the Black family tree… what's for dinner, Lily?"

Lily arched a brow; did her husband need his prescription checked? She pointed at the table, where two pizza boxes were open and a few slices remained. Between the two, there was enough pizza left for a person or two to make a meal. "You're looking at it. Might want to grab some before Jasmine and Luna polish it off."

Turning away in disgust, James took a handful of floo powder from above the fireplace and pitched it into the flames. "I came home hoping for real food. If I wanted muggle pizza, we could have ordered that from the Ministry and eaten while we did our post-shift paperwork. Dora, fix your hair. The Leaky Cauldron!"

Whirling, James disappeared through the floo and, after restoring her hair to its original long black look, 'Dora' followed after him. "Well that was interesting." Lily looked over at Narcissa, who shook her head before nodding towards the girls. "Later."

Oh. That was rather ominous sounding. 


End file.
